Ben Westwood was born in 1985 in Cannock, Staffordshire before moving to the nearby small former-mining town of Rugeley.

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From the age of ten years old he was running away from home and going missing from days to weeks at a time whilst sleeping rough and wandering around the county and surrounding areas.

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He spent his teenage years from twelve years old bouncing between the streets of London and care placements across Staffordshire including children's homes and foster parents around the Rugeley, Cannock, Lichfield, Tamworth, Burntwood and Aldridge areas among other places.

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In 2016 he wrote his childhood story 'Poems From a Runaway' and self-published it a year later which he now reads to social workers, at safeguarding events and with missing children's charities.

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