The refusal of asylum can have a profound impact on children’s lives. Lisa Nandy explores new ways of working with families in the Midlands, who have been made destitute by the asylum process.
There can be many challenges in working effectively with refugee and asylum seeking families, but when those families are at the end of the asylum process, refused asylum and without permission to work or claim benefits, those challenges become far greater.
Over the last three years agencies supporting people seeking sanctuary, including the Children’s Society, have witnessed a significant increase in the numbers of destitute children accessing their services. This picture is supported by wider research: in a short survey in 2008, the Joseph Rowntree trust counted 51 destitute refugee and asylum seeking children in Leeds in just one week, which represented a fourfold increase over the past two years (Brown, D. Joseph Rowntree Trust, More Destitution in Leeds, June 2008).
Destitution is the ‘inability to access statutory support mechanisms… reliance on friends, family and charitable groups for basic subsistence and /or accommodation. It can also be defined by its symptoms or effects, such as homelessness’ (Information centre for Asylum and Refugees, 2006).
Most, though not all, of the children who access destitution services are with family members. Many of these families are not in touch with any other statutory or voluntary agencies, living essentially an underground existence with basic health, education and safety needs going unmet.