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Someone else’s problem:the concentration of unaccompanied
children and lack of responsibility sharing in the UKJo Wilding
University of Brighton
Conference is organised in the scope of the “In whose best interest? Exploring Unaccompanied Minors’ Rights Through the Lens of Migration and Asylum Procedures (MinAs)” research project, co-funded by the PPUAM 2013 of the European Union.
1.Mapping
2.Effects
3.Solutions?
Children Act 1989
Section 20
Unaccompanied children are looked after by the local authority where
they first come to attention.
Why bother mapping?
“Holding environment”
Capacity to implement best interests
Macro-level context for lived experiences
Number of unaccompanied children looked after by each local authority 2015
Number of unaccompanied children Number of authorities
0 30
1-9 50
10-19 25
20-29 13
30-39 13
40-49 8
50-99 2
100+ 5
Number of unaccompanied children looked after by each local authority 2015
0 1 to 9 10 to 19 20 to 29 30 to 39 40 to 49 50 to 100 100+0
10
20
30
40
50
60Number of local authorities
Number of unaccompanied children looked after by each local authority - 2001
Number of unaccompanied children Number of authorities
0-20 98
21-50 9
51-100 8
100+ 3
1000+ 2 (Kent and London)
The London Boroughs
http://directory.londoncouncils.gov.uk/
0-20 21-50 51-100 100+ 1000+0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Number of unaccompanied children per authority: 2001Number of author-
ities
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
220
296364 369
416
629
772802
Total numbers of UASC aged 17 or under in Kent County Council’s care
May 2014
May 2015
July 2015
16 months
October 5th 2015
Monthly UASC referrals to Kent County Council’s (KCC’s) social care
Jan. 2015
Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sept. In the first 6 days of October
Total
31 16 31 13 41 103 182 95 97 44 653
Key issues from a best interests perspective:
• Foster placements / accommodation
• Education places
• Health care – physical and mental
• Formal support / social worker time
• Legal representatives’ capacity
• Informal support
Accommodation
Aged 15 or under Aged 16 or 17
Foster care
Children’s home
Foster care
Semi-independent
accommodation
Reception centre (short term)
The family, the whole environment, when you’re with a family you have a family when you come home, family around you to talk to, hot food to eat, suddenly you’re by yourself, you have to do everything by yourself, food, pay bills, many things by yourself. It would be better, absolutely, to stay with a family for longer.
Stefan – moved from foster care at 16
Breakfast - eggs, lunch - eggs, dinner - eggs. No change. Robel, 15 (age deemed to be 17 by the authorities, living in semi-independent accommodation)
Education
• free and compulsory up to the age of 18
• can include apprenticeships or other training for 16 to 18
• local authority must offer a school place for all children regardless of immigration status
17
“We had a college… that created lots of places and was
very inclusive of this cohort and that was obviously an
attractive place for us to be placing these young people
because we knew there was a good college there
… but that district council became quite disturbed about
their community cohesion and that college no longer does
ESOL.”
Senior manager, Kent
[A]side from our asylum seeking population there is very little indigenous experience in Kent of the sorts of health problems that present in this cohort. That would look very different in the London boroughs or some of our colleagues up in the north where they’ve got much greater mixed ethnic populations [than] we have got here in Kent.
Senior manager
Health
Psychological health care:
Through Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) within National Health Service
Through charities
Under-resourced in all parts of the country
The few kids I’ve got from Kent, have got into some kind of trouble [for minor criminal offences], perhaps because of being kind of left.
Lawyer 1
Formal support
Children did not know who their social worker was.
At crisis point, children not being allocated a social worker.
Children placed outside the area – limiting contact with social worker.
Legal representation
Legal aid contract:
Informal support
Importance of the “significant adult”
No right to family reunion
Family tracing rare
Solutions?
Children Act framework
vs
Disadvantages of concentration
Pan-London protocol
Rota for sharing responsibility between London boroughs
BUT
Limited effect
Croydon 412 ; Camden 10
Kent Safe Case Transfer pilot - 2002
3 x 10 boys aged 16-17
Transferred with consent to Greater Manchester
Voluntary assumption of responsibility
Successful but not continued
The Specialist Authorities model
Home Office proposal
50-60 specialist authorities
“A more rational system”
No extra funding no bids for specialist status
France
Concentrations in Paris, Lille and Marseilles
Circular of 2013
5 days’ funding to assess
Placement in allocated department
Quota for each department to accept
Thanks to Corentin Bailleul for information
BUT:
Resistance because of inadequate funding
“Compulsory” but not binding
Reception suspended - quotas reached
Long delays in assessment private life formed
Allocation regardless of child’s views
Double assessment
Thanks to Corentin Bailleul for information
Austria
Bund operates reception centres
Bund delegates to one of 9 Länder
Allocation to Land according to distribution key
Legal responsibility passes to allocated Land
Thanks to Ayse Dursun for information
BUT:
Tensions over funding
Delays in offers of accommodation
Delays in appointment of guardian
Language“burden”
“claimed”
“dispersal”
“problem”
“crisis”
“protection”
“care”
“responsibility”
Key issues in responsibility sharing
Funding
Legal responsibility
Political and public attitude
Parallel with Europe’s “Dublin” system?
Thanks
Professor Marie-Bénédicte Dembour
Corentin Bailleul and Ayse Dursun for information about responsibility sharing in
France and Austria
Project Partners
All interviewees, especially the children
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