Unaccompanied Minors Seeking Sanctuary (previously known as UASC or Separated Migrants)
All children deserve protection, irrespective of the circumstances of their displacement. In most European countries, children who arrive unaccompanied by a responsible adult, will be classed as children in care (CiC) and placed under the care of local authorities.
Young people travelling on their own have often suffered immense trauma. This includes significant interpersonal trauma and untold moral injury.
Virtual School Support
Sanctuary seeking children will be assigned an educational advisor and have an initial PEP with their social worker and carer within 10 working days of the young person becoming a child in care to Central Bedfordshire Council. The social worker will ensure an interpreter is present to support the young person at this meeting and ensure that their views are heard and used to guide the direction of the meeting.
If appropriate the young person will be sent an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) practice book and course book and set up with a Flash Academy account which provides them with 100’s of online lessons and activities to accelerate progress in learning English. The flash academy learning platform can also be used as an APP on the young person’s phone and in the APP format includes an object translator.
UK's No.1 EAL Platform For Secondary Schools - FlashAcademy®
Targets will be set, and advice given to support the young person in obtaining a school / college place as soon as possible, getting to know the new area they are living in and making connections in the community based on their interests and hobbies where possible.
STAR (STrengths based Adaptive manuals for sanctuaRy seeking children)
This is a “dynamically developing open-source manual to support practitioners of many backgrounds working with forcibly displaced, sanctuary seeking children, young people and families.” Developed by the Anna Freud foundation it provides a wealth of information and tools to help professionals better support unaccompanied minor refugees (UASC).
The platform can be a little difficult to navigate and there are titles with missing content but what is there is incredibly valuable. The content is ever increasing and improving, and this open-source manual is designed to support access to evidence-based resources and allow co-editing (in some conditions) with the hope of developing a community of practice through the practice of sharing.
STAR — STrenghts based Adaptive manuals for sanctuaRy seeking children (annafreud.org) (PDF)
Other useful resources:
- visual of the asylum-seeking process including where the PEP (personal education plan) fits in for the young person (PDF)
- overview of the stages of a young person’s asylum journey including problems they might encounter at each stage and actions that can be taken
- The Bell Foundation are a great resource, and their key impact statement is “Tackling language barriers with research, thought leadership, innovation and practical interventions.” On their website (among other things) they share training opportunities and a resource library for EAL and ESOL learners in all education phases from early years to adult