'I felt safer being on the streets than in care homes'

At 15, Chereece Bateson went missing frequently. Now 24, she tells Tara Cobham why she’s working to build a new service designed to help today’s vulnerable children

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As a teenager, Chereece Bateson was going missing so often that even police struggled to keep track. In one month alone, she disappeared 27 times. She was living in care, “barely eating”, surviving off food banks, and felt safer on the streets than inside the places that were meant to protect her.

Now 24, she looks back on that period as a time when she had “no home, no safety, no control” — and almost no one to turn to. Today, the young woman from Manchester is helping to build a service she believes could have changed everything for her. She is one of the young advisers behind SafeCall, a new 24-hour lifeline being launched by The Independent and the charity Missing People to support the 70,000 children reported missing each year.

This publication’s goal is to raise £165,000 to help fund SafeCall, so that those children can find support, safety and connection, no matter what. The charity currently reaches one in four of those children - and, with your support, SafeCall will help it to reach many more, offering a lifeline for young people in crisis. “I wish that support was there when I was in my situation,” Chereece tells The Independent. “I would’ve realised I wasn’t on my own. I’d have had someone who listened, someone who advocated for me. It would’ve given me escape – what I desperately needed.”