We just need to find ways of reaching the kids on the internet so that they know that if they run, they'd better stay gone.
There are also pretty good books out there on how to avoid being found by investigators---private or not.
I'm not advocating that anyone run away. I'm saying that if you do run, you can't afford to be caught.
The steps are pretty obvious when you think about them:
1) Change your name. Do not use a relative's name. Do not use a name that keeps your initials--people tend to do that, so investigators look for that.
2) Practice, a lot, thinking of your new name as your name, so you answer to it without thinking about it.
3) Go to a big city multiple states away from your home. Staying in the same city is asking to be found, because most kids do stay in the same town and keep contact with their friends or move in with friends. Pick a big city where you have no relatives and no friends. There will be nothing to draw investigators to that city over any other. If you check out cities on the web, do it at your local library on their computers. If you do it on your computers at home, or a friend's or relative's computer, an investigator can find traces you leave in the system. Pick a city and state with an 18 year old age of majority where it's really hard to involuntarily commit somebody If your parents are conservative, pick a liberal city. If your parents are liberal, pick a conservative city, and choose to fit in--hostility of the locals to your parents' kind of people will work in your favor. The bigger the city, the better.
4) If you have credit cards, bank cards, etc. do not use them. Exception is if you have a bank card, you can draw out money once from an ATM near your house right before you run. Don't use a credit card to buy a bus ticket unless it's a ticket in a random direction to a random city you *aren't* going to. A good one to pick for a fake out is a city where you have relatives that disapprove of your parents or that you're close to.
5) Do not take your cell phone. It can pinpoint your location. Do not take a cell phone from a friend or relative--the investigator *will* find out about it no matter how much your friend or relative loves you. Even if they don't talk.
6) Change your appearance once before you get on the bus, and once after. A wig or non-permanent change for before the bus, permanent changes for after. For the bus trip, pick a totally different stereotype clique from your school to look like and dress like. Don't look up, keep your eyes and your head down. Cameras are up. Dress like a stereotype and the stereotype will be all people see. After the bus: change your hairstyle and color completely; alter any existing tattoos beyond recognition with temporary tatoos; clean-cut but poor is the safest stereotypical group to pick after the bus--you can have your own style after you're 18 and safe.
7) Pay cash for everything. Once you're in your new city, you can buy a disposable phone. Tell anyone who asks that you're 18 even if they look skeptical.
:cool: Spend time in the public libraries keeping up with your school subjects. It's not a place investigators will look for you, and you really will need that knowledge once you're 18 and can pick up the pieces of your life.
9) Get jobs doing the same day labor the illegal aliens get. Get in real good with the illegal aliens--get them to teach you Spanish.
10) Always answer a question in as few words as possible. It makes people think you're polite and non-boring while telling them as little about yourself as possible.
11) Avoid drugs and alcohol. They lower your inhibitions and you might confide in somebody. Don't talk about your past, don't talk about yourself. Get good at getting other people talking about themselves and changing the subject.
12) Do not make up elaborate histories for yourself. Do make up a prior life, but keep it simple. An alcoholic mom and an abusive live-in boyfriend of mom and grim silence about how he was abusive, "I just can't talk about it." is always believable.
13) If you only tell your "story" if it's practically dragged from you, and you stick to it, it's probably safe to use soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
14) Safe to go home? Probably not. Do not contact anyone you used to know, at all, until after your 18th birthday. You can explain to the people you really care about afterwards--if they really love you, they'll understand.
15) Don't trust the nice, sympathetic people who try to get you to open up or call home. They're well meaning, but naive. They, like most people, have no idea of the horrors of these facilities. Their regrets won't undo what gets done to *you*.
16) If any of these well-meaning idiots gets insistent, leave town for a different city, but pick one by the same standards you used picking the first one. You may be able to just move across town if the city is big enough.
17) If you're not in enough danger to be willing to do all this to get it right, don't run in the first place.
