In a report, When is a child not a child?, the association calls for age-disputed cases to be conducted over a period of time, with observations from a range of professionals. It says training for workers to look for signs of a young person's age in their relationships with others should also be considered.
Under-16s have greater entitlement to support than older young people or adults, but asylum seekers often arrive without documentation proving their age. In 2005 about 45 per cent of young asylum applicants were age-disputed and treated as adults, despite a Home Office policy of giving the "benefit of the doubt" to age-dispute cases.
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