When a young person comes back from being missing or absent without permission, they should be offered an interview. It isn't a debrief for the home's benefit — it's their chance to say why they went, what happened while they were away, and what would make a difference.

The 72-hour window

The interview should be offered within 72 hours of their return. ARC surfaces it as overdue if it hasn't been actioned in that time.

Offered, not completed. A young person who doesn't want to talk hasn't failed to comply, and neither have you.

It belongs to the missing episode

The interview is attached to the incident recorded for the episode. Record the episode under one of the missing or absence types — if it's logged as something else, the interview isn't part of that record at all.

Open the interview from the young person's Return home interviews section rather than from the incident.

The four states

ARC works these out from what you've recorded, rather than asking you to set a status:

State	What it means
Pending	Not yet offered. This is what goes overdue.
Offered	Offered, not yet taken up
Declined	They didn't want it
Completed	The interview happened

Recording that it was offered and declined is a complete and proper outcome. Leaving it pending because they said no is not.

Who does it

Record who conducted the interview and how independent they were. An interview by someone the young person trusts, who wasn't part of what happened, gets closer to the truth than one done by whoever was on shift.

What to write down

Their account, in their words as far as you can manage. Then the themes — what keeps coming up across episodes. Themes are the part that earns its keep: they feed the risk assessment and the plan, which is how an interview turns into something changing.

Sign-off

A manager signs it off once it's completed. ARC won't accept a sign-off on an interview that's still pending, offered or declined, and it can't be signed off twice.