This is similar to the military term awol. However it is used by foster children in group homes I believe it
may be in Canada only.
It stems from the act of the staff reporting
kids missing, their paperwork term is AWOL. If a child is actually as it says, they
will be out without explicit permission from the foster parent, group home staff or their child service worker. They
will have a missing person report filed if they are truly awol.
In
kids who have grown up in these homes there is alternative meanings, it is a way of referring to
crazy or aggressive behaviours. It doesn’
t apply outside of those. If someone ‘went AWOL’ in any way you would not want to be around. They could have started a fight or just screamed in everyone’
s face who knows.
A kid going awol is different than someone going missing among foster children because if someone goes awol there’
s no real risk because someone (foster parent, worker, other foster
kids) actually knows where they are. Missing means no one knows and they could be in danger, it’s much more serious.