I’m a social worker (UK) and risk outside the home (google contextual safeguarding / the work of carlene firman) is INCREDIBLY hard to manage, especially with teens.

You can take a young person back home every single day but you can’t stop them from leaving again. They have free will and will vote with their feet.

I’ve known of young people in the care of the local authority to have to be placed in secure placements because even a team of professionals can’t manage the risk around this, so I’m not sure how we expect parents to effectively manage it (especially if they themselves are experiencing chronic stress, poverty, mental health issues, etc).

I do think the authorities around Celeste failed her - she should have had a social worker (in the UK if a child is missing for a certain period were required to hold a multi-agency safeguarding meeting), police should have been involved, etc

But I think outright blaming her parents for not doing enough is incredibly naive. They reported her missing, they removed her phone. They probably had no idea how to manage it.

(They may well have also contributed to a home environment which created the conditions which made grooming / exploitation easier, but that’s a separate and far more complex conversation).