CYP Now - Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children

The privilege of being a member of ADCS, a member of our Council of Reference and the chair of the ADCS Migrant Families Taskforce means that I have access, on your behalf, to senior colleagues in central government departments and on occasion access to experiences that may not usually be available.

Colin Pettigrew is corporate director for children, young people and schools at Nottinghamshire County Council. Picture: Colin Pettigrew

In mid-July, together with our Association’s chief officer, Esther Kavanagh Dixon, I travelled to Dover in Kent to see at first hand the experience of children arriving in the UK on “small boats” without a parent or other legal carer and who are claiming asylum.

We have come to refer to these children as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and increasingly using the acronym “UASC”. Language is important and I have a strong belief that describing any individual, or group of individuals, especially but not exhaustively, people with protected characteristics or vulnerabilities using an acronym risks, amongst other things, depersonalising them and overlooking their individual identities. I wonder how many people on that busy Clapham Omnibus would either recognise the acronym or be able to say who it describes? First and foremost, these were and are children, a point clearly stated in the High Court judgement of 27 July 2023, more on that later…

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