Agenda item

To provide an overview of the numbers of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) in Brent and the services available to support them.

Kelli Eboji (Head of LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) introduced the report, which informed members of the Council’s legal responsibilities towards Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) under the Children’s Act 1989. She explained that UASC was defined as ‘at the time of making an application that the person is or appears to be under 18 and is applying in their own right because they have no guardian or relative in this country’. The number of UASCs in care had grown by approximately 34% in the UK over the past 12 months. This had been especially true for London, which continued to have the highest proportion of UASCs in the UK by a considerable margin. In introducing the report, she highlighted the following key points:

·         UASCs became known to the Council through different routes. They could present directly to the local police station or council offices, or may be a previously dispersed asylum seeker. There was also the pan London rota to fairly distribute presenting UASCs and the national transfer scheme managed by the Home Office.

·         Since August 2021, 59 people who were placed in hotel accommodation in Brent presented to the service as a UASC. This meant the service needed to assess those 59 people’s age via age assessment. A significant number of those 59 were found to be adults. It was not an exact science and there was a need to be sensitive due to the risk of judicial review. The Council normally worked to a margin of 5 years.

·         A dedicated UASC team had been created in Brent following the large influx of asylum seekers residing in hotel accommodation in order to respond to that specific pressure. There were social workers in that team who had specialist UASC knowledge and experience in completing age assessments.

·         As of March 2023, Brent had 43 young people in care who were UASCs, a significant drop from the previous year which was 74. Brent had 153 care leavers who were former UASC, making up 35% of the care leaver population.

·         In relation to support for UASCs, there was close working with the Brent Virtual School to ensure that, whether being assessed for their age or having had their age assessed and accepted, there was access to education. There was also close working with health partners to ensure quick health assessments and screenings. Regarding mental health and wellbeing support, there were several support services available. There was the WEST service delivered through the Anna Freud Centre, and specific group and 1-1 support for UASCs. Other community resources included WDP and Elevate, and there were other organisations that the Council linked with such as Young Roots and the Refugee Council. The Care Leavers Hub was also available to UASCs which they were encouraged to use, including the weekly football sessions run by the Leaving Care service which were particularly popular with UASCs and former UASCs and therapeutic Art sessions through Brent Care Journeys.

The Chair thanked Kelli for her introduction and invited contributions from the Committee, with the following points raised:

The Committee asked how many UASCs had a learning disability. Kelli Eboji explained that this would likely be determined through the Brent Virtual School. If there were concerns for a child’s learning ability, they would be referred to an educational psychologist for an assessment through the Inclusion Service. More frequently, there were concerns about a child’s mental health and the presentation of their emotional wellbeing could create some uncertainty about their learning needs. She felt this was an area that needed more focus as it could take a long time to establish if a learning disability was present.

In relation to age assessments, the Committee asked what would happen where it was not clear how old a presenting asylum seeker was. Kelli Eboji highlighted that the Council worked to a margin of error, usually of around 5 years in order to then initiate an age assessment. If the Council determined that someone was between the ages of 18-25 then they would accommodate them and provide services under Section 20 of the Children’s Act, and if they were assessed to be over 25 they would not be accommodated and would be referred back through the Home Office route. The assessment initially looked at the welfare of the person, then a social work judgement was made as to whether the person looked to be under 18. The person’s claimed age was often in direct conflict with the Home Office assessed age and a judgement would be made depending on what the social worker was seeing and what the person was saying. Sometimes, if a person was assessed to be over 25 and therefore not accommodated, then this could lead to legal challenge. Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children and Young People, Brent Council) confirmed that if there were any doubts about someone’s age they would not be placed in a foster home with younger children and more likely would be placed in semi-independent accommodation or in a foster home with older young people. He highlighted that the Council took the position of listening to the people coming forward and giving them the benefit of the doubt, veering away from a culture of disbelief.

Continuing to discuss age assessments, the Committee queried whether they were particularly distressing for the people coming forward. Kelli Eboji advised that they could be distressing because very often the people coming forward were already distressed and relaying distressing stories. Sometimes age assessors would hear very similar stories where people may have been told what to say, which they then needed to unpick to understand the truth. Age assessments would look at the person’s health and family history but could not use medical determination such as dental records. There were interpreters, 2 assessing social workers, and independent support at the time of an assessment. Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children and Young People, Brent Council) advised that the Home Office were now setting up their own age assessment unit, with social workers employed to do assessments that would include bone density and dentistry tests, which the Home Office considered to be a more objective view on age. There was a difference of opinion of how certain that could be as it was not an exact science, but this would be done centrally by the Home Office and that responsibility for age assessments would be taken away from local authorities at some point.

The Committee highlighted that many older UASCs were more independent than their looked after peers and often went out by themselves a lot, becoming difficult for their foster carer to keep track of. They queried how the foster carers remained curious enough to be assured the young person was safe. Kelli Eboji explained that the Council tried hard to place a young person under 18 in a foster care placement, but this depended on the information they were able to learn about the person and others already in the foster care placement. Most UASCs were in semi-independent placements, but the one’s who were in foster care were often more independent and there was a need to explore that with the person, explain the rules and find out why they were not abiding with them. This was work that the social workers should be doing and supporting the foster carers with.

In considering whether the right foster carers were available for UASCs, the Committee heard that there was a diverse group of foster carers and a set of carers who took only UASCs. However, the service felt that there was always room for more. There was good language and culture crossovers for most UASCs, but there was a low number of Afghan foster carers.

RESOLVED:

i)              To note the report.