Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children

Systemic and Narrative Work with Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children: Stories of Relocation provides a contextualised, research-based understanding of how to enhance and support the emotional health and well-being of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The framework presented in this book is an innovative intervention that enhances the well-being of children who have experienced trauma by improving the therapeutic abilities for all who support and care for them. This book presents the evidence base for this new systemic and narrative trauma-informed framework of care, creates a wider understanding of working with trauma responses in unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and offers coherence for practitioners wanting to use this approach. The authors provide a physiological view, as well as identify embodied aspects of trauma experience, and describe a narrative approach developed from a clinical understanding of trauma, as well as presenting the words of children who took part in the project. Creating a common multi-disciplinary language, this approach can be used to improve coherence, coordination, and excellence within the whole system. This book is essential reading for all practitioners working with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. It will also be of interest to students and trainees of social work and other mental health disciplines, as well as other professionals seeking to understand the needs of this group.

Kohli offers a comprehensive overview of what is known about the resettlement of young asylum-seekers, answering social work practitioners' need for a fuller understanding. After reviewing existing approaches, research evidence and current practice, students and practitioners are presented with a new conceptual framework for social work.

This book examines the problems faced by separated children from abroad (refugee, migrant or trafficked children), what their needs are, and how their needs should be met in order to ensure their effective safeguarding. It identifies gaps in services and demonstrates how these gaps can be addressed. Case studies and best practice points feature.

This volume explores the various challenges faced by ​migrant unaccompanied children, using a clinical sociological approach and a global perspective. It applies a human rights and comparative framework to examine ​the reception of unaccompanied children ​in European, North American, South American, Asian and African countries. Some of the important issues the volume discusses are: access of displaced unaccompanied children to justice across borders and juridical contexts; voluntary guardianship for unaccompanied children; the diverse but complementary needs of unaccompanied children in care, which if left unaddressed can have serious implications on their social integration in the host societies; and the detention of migrant children as analyzed against the most recent European and international human rights law standards. This is a one-of-a-kind volume bringing together perspectives from child rights policy chairs across the world on a global issue. The contributions reflect the authors’ diverse cultural contexts and academic and professional backgrounds, and hence, this volume synthesizes theory with practice through rich firsthand experiences, along with theoretical discussions. It is addressed not only to academics and professionals working on and with migrant children, but also to a wider, discerning public interested in a better understanding of the rights of unaccompanied children.

This text explores the challenges and possibilities of working with asylum seeking children and young people, including the different aspects of resettlement, alongside the development and sustainability of good standards of practice. A valuable resource for students and practitioners wanting to understand current debates and support unaccompanied minors.

This book focuses on the migration of undocumented minors arriving recently to the United States and the European Union, flows that are often labeled ‘undocumented’, ‘illegal’, or ‘irregular’ and due to their sudden increase, they have been described in the media, policy circles, and scholarly work as a ‘surge’ or a ‘crisis’. Leading scholars examine the intricacies of the contexts that these minors encounter in the localities where they arrive, including the legal and ethical frameworks for protecting unaccompanied minors, governmental decisions about the ‘best interests’ of the children, these minors’ expressions of their own best interests or agency as they navigate immigration and social service systems, conditions in detention centers, and the health and social service needs in receiving communities. Though definitions and techniques for counting unaccompanied migrant minors differ between the U.S. and the EU, this book underscores the immigrant minors’ common vulnerabilities and strategies they adopt to protect themselves and improve their circumstances. At the same time, contributors to the volume highlight common challenges that both European and U.S. governments face as they develop policy strategies and legal mechanisms to attempt to balance the best interests of these children with national interests of the countries in which they settle. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

A special edition of Child and Family Social Work focusing on the lives and circumstances of refugee and asylum seeking children and families in several countries - Australia, Ireland, Norway and the United Kingdom. Predominantly focusing on unaccompanied or separated children who come to these countries without an adult to look after them. But equally importantly, many children are accompanied by adult members who seek asylum, and sometimes achieve their goal of full refugee status.Papers include:* The child's or the State's best interests - An examination of the ways immigration officials work with Unaccompanied asylum seeking minors in Norway- Ada Engebrigtsen* Asylum, Children's rights and Social Work - Sarah Cemlyn and Linda Briskman* How social workers work with African Refugee Children and their families - Toyin Okitikpi and Cathy Amer* Promoting psychosocial wellbeing in unaccompanied minors in the United Kingdom - Ravi Kohli and Rosie Mather* Unsettling the social in social work: responses to asylum-seeking children in Ireland - Alastair Christie* The social services response to unaccompanied children in England - Fiona MitchellEach paper analyses the strength and weaknesses of the systems and practices in working with Asylum seekers and refugees.

The displacement of unaccompanied young people to countries far from home happens for many reasons: what unites these young people is the experience of being separated from their roots, their culture and all that is familiar. Important questions examined here include: are young asylum seekers entitled to the same services as children in the UK care system and, if so, do they receive it?; how are young people's needs defined and assessed?; and how do the services provided affect their progress and welfare?

This text explores the challenges and possibilities of working with asylum seeking children and young people, including the different aspects of resettlement, alongside the development and sustainability of good standards of practice. A valuable resource for students and practitioners wanting to understand current debates and support unaccompanied minors.

Every year, thousands of young people on the run from war and persecution, or escaping poverty and chronic instability, make their way to Europe without their parents. Embarking on long and often dangerous journeys, they have either become separated from their families on the way or set out on their own. In recent years, the number of unaccompanied minors arriving in Europe has risen drastically. It has led to a major shift in perception in European countries, initiating a wealth of policies and infrastructures targeted specifically at unaccompanied child refugees. This book investigates the emergence of the unaccompanied child refugee as a ‘crisis figure’. It shows how the sense of exceptionality attached to this figure translates into ambiguous and at times extremely contradictory social practices that have far-reaching effects on the lives of refugee youth. By bringing together ethnographically driven research on unaccompanied minors in some of the core arrival and transit countries in or into Europe, it shows the divergent ways ideas on childhood, deservingness and vulnerability are interpreted, lived, and grappled with on the ground. By laying the focus on young people’s own experiences and perspectives, it establishes a deeper understanding of the ways unaccompanied asylum seekers live and make sense of shifting social terrains. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.