Support and advice for unaccompanied asylum seekers

[Mrs S Collins]

Hi everyone

We have a number of recently-arrived, unaccompanied asylum seekers in school - boys aged 14-16 who have made their own way to the UK from a number of different countries and have been placed in foster care.  We are seeing rising levels of anxiety and stress about the possibility of future deportation to Rwanda and, whilst we are doing our best to reassure them, we (and they) know that there are no guarantees.  We'd like to do more but are feeling pretty helpless and ill-equipped at the moment.

Is anyone accessing any effective external support/counselling for pupils in this situation?   I've reached out to our local council and Refugee Action but have not received anything back so far and the social worker teams report that they haven't been given any guidance as yet.  Like us, they hope/believe that minors won't be affected but we know that our older boys are very afraid.

Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions.

Sharon

 

Sharon Collins

Subject Leader - EAL

Abraham Moss Community School

Crescent Road

Crumpsall

Manchester

M8 5UF

[Ann Horton]

I've just had an e-mail from the Refugee Council who have highlighted the problem you have raised - apparently there have indeed been children who have been incorrectly assessed as adults, so I can understand the stresss those boys are feeling.

It might be worth contacting the Refugee Council. I don't know if they have any resources, but they certainly are aware of the problem and might be able to point you in the right direction.

Refugee Council | Supporting and empowering refugees

Refugee Council | Supporting and empowering refugees The Refugee Council is one of the leading charities in the UK working directly with refugees and asylum seekers ...

Ann

--
This group is managed by NALDIC, the UK's EAL Professional Association. Please visit our website for further information: www.naldic.org.uk. Twitter: @EAL_naldic. NALDIC's Privacy Policy | https://naldic.org.uk/privacy-policy
 
National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum
A Registered Charity and Company Limited by Guarantee in England and Wales. Charity No 1110570. Company No 05159760
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "EAL-Bilingual" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to eal-bilingua...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eal-bilingual/DB6PR1001MB110965277DF481D65A03C67AFDAD9%40DB6PR1001MB1109.EURPRD10.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

[Griffin, Melanie]

Hi Sharon,

 

It’s terrible that the young people have this worry on top of the difficulties they’ve already been through.

 

Fair Futures in Bury runs a support group for UASC boys. Many of the UASC young people in Bury and from neighbouring areas attend it. Part of the group’s work is therapeutic support. They may be able to help with this and I think they have just got funding to extend the work.

 

https://www.fairfuturescic.org/   fairf...@outlook.com

 

Hope you can find suitable support for them.

 

Best wishes,

 

Melanie

 

 

Melanie Griffin BA (Hons), PGCE, PgDip, M.Ed., FCCT

Head of Curriculum and Language Access Service

Bury Council

 

m.gr...@bury.gov.uk  Tel: 0161 253 7929 (direct number)

www.clas-eal.org.uk     

Follow us on Twitter @CLAS_EAL  

Facebook @CLASEAL

LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/clas-eal

--

[Mrs S Collins]

Thanks Melanie, Ann and Dominic for your responses.  Your suggestions are really helpful and much appreciated.  I'll be contacting Fair Futures and the Refugee Council this morning - fingers crossed they can help us.  Dominic, if you could point me in the direction of those Twitter resources, I'd be really interested to have a look at them.

Thanks again

Sharon

---

From: Griffin, Melanie <M.Gr...@bury.gov.uk>
Sent: 16 June 2022 08:56
To: Mrs S Collins <s.co...@abrahammoss.manchester.sch.uk>; eal-bi...@googlegroups.com <eal-bi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: Support and advice for unaccompanied asylum seekers