Seeking a new life

In a supermarket in Canterbury, Kent, nine teenagers look bemused as they study the magazine racks. One picks up a magazine with a picture of a woman tying herself into a knot. "What she is doing?" he giggles. It is a yoga title. The young people are all unaccompanied asylum seekers originally from a variety of countries including Eritrea, Albania and Afghanistan.

The supermarket visit is part of a lesson to help familiarise the group with British culture, encompassing basic English language with life skills. Today's class began with studying the newspapers, which led to discussions about the Royal family and house prices, then onto hobbies and an opportunity to buy publications on their interests.

The young people, aged 16 to 18, are attending the Riverside Project run by the Kent Refugee Action Network (KRAN) - a charity that provides learning assistance and pastoral support to young unaccompanied asylum seekers and refugees in Kent.

The county, with the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel within its boundary, is a major point of entry into Britain for unaccompanied asylum seekers. Typically, they cross the channel in the back of lorries, some through their own efforts, but many are smuggled in through agents paid by their families in the hope they will find a better life. Others may be trafficked. They are usually picked up by the authorities either at the docks or at a lorry park near Folkestone and, if assessed as under 18, become the responsibility of the county council (see box).

KRAN was formed in the early 2000s when Kent experienced an influx of young asylum seekers. Individual local organisations working with migrants saw there was a need to form one voluntary group to offer additional support on top of what social services provides.

KRAN chair Ann Whitbourn, a retired grammar school deputy head, explains that while their adult counterparts are dispersed around the UK, usually to areas with large ethnic communities, young asylum seekers arriving in Kent can be quite isolated.

"In Kent, often they haven't got their own communities," she says. "They need people to speak to who are not judging them, who accept them for who they are. These are young people who might have lost family or lost touch with them. They come into a strange country and culture they are not used to. Their English may be non-existent."

The group began by growing a network of mentors, with initial funding from the Home Office. This is now the Supporting Vulnerable Youth project aimed at 16 to 23-year-old unaccompanied asylum seekers and refugees in East Kent. It employs two mentor managers, experienced in working with refugees, who train and co-ordinate about 80 volunteers.

The project has grown in response to the young people's needs and now also provides therapeutic activities, drop-in advice and social activities from its base in the coastal town of Folkestone. Workers are not qualified to provide legal advice on asylum claims, but they can talk them through the process and signpost them to trusted solicitors in the area. Mentors often attend appeals for moral support.

The Riverside Project in Canterbury became part of KRAN's work in 2007 to provide the additional learning assistance many of them need to get on in mainstream education.

Funded by Kent County Council, the project works with looked-after young asylum seekers in care who are between school and college. The majority are living in shared accommodation in the community.

"Nearly all asylum-seeking children who have entered Kent County Council social services will go through Riverside at some point," says project co-ordinator Gwen Wilkinson. This amounts to approximately 100 a year.

"We are their first step onto their education journey and really the journey to assimilating into society," says Wilkinson, who is qualified to teach English as a foreign language.

"Today one of our students asked us about stamps, because they don't know what they are, and they don't know who else to ask. It's all these things we know through osmosis, but they haven't got a clue."

Half-day classes are held on Monday to Thursday at the Riverside Youth Centre, or young people can attend the outreach service in Folkestone, which is aimed at older unaccompanied asylum seekers who are more likely to have dropped out of college. "We like to have a minimum of three months with them, but they can come for as long as they need to," says Wilkinson.

Whitbourn adds that the aim of the project is "to get them where they want to be, so they can access college or get a job - to be understood and to understand what's being asked of them. Some of them haven't decided what they want to do. Some of the students have gone onto university and graduated".

Pastoral support

For many, however, overcoming the traumatic experiences that have brought them here can be a major barrier to integrating into society, and this is where the pastoral support offered by KRAN can be invaluable.

"All of our young people are traumatised in one way or another. They have all experienced and seen first-hand things we have only seen on the news," says Wilkinson. "They've seen family members killed in front of them, they've been raped in their own country and on the way here by people they trusted.

"Some of our children have been trafficked for exploitation. It can be very hard for them to leave their families. One young man from Afghanistan said his mother saw the Taliban coming over the hill and told him to run, and not look back."

These experiences tend to be internalised, says Whitbourn. "The young people are often depressed, sometimes irrationally angry. Just not knowing what has happened at home must cause tremendous feelings of stress."

KRAN is expanding its work with local mental health organisations, including running art therapy and creative writing classes. It is hoping to bring youth workers on board too.

Accessing mainstream mental health services in Kent "is a real nightmare for these young people", says Wilkinson. "In my experience, they have had to reach crisis before any help is offered because they don't initially present as needing it, as there is so much else going on. By the time they feel they do need help, they've got to hit the waiting list and there will be some incident that will tip them. It's a really sticky area."

Otherwise the charity does have a close relationship with the statutory services. "There is an awful lot of interaction between the statutory agencies. We attend monthly multi-agency meetings to share information about any issues that have come up with the young people or the local communities," she adds.

Having regular contact with an otherwise elusive group means KRAN can act as something of a safety net for social services too, Wilkinson suggests.

"If the young people are registered and attending here, social workers know that they are in positive activities and someone is there to help them," she says. "I can give them more time and help with problems immediately or access other agencies - for instance, if someone has a problem with their house, they can tell us and we can tell the duty social worker. The social worker can also leave messages with us. The interaction between the young person and social workers is vital, so it is a good relationship."

The ability to offer these young people the time to help with practical or personal problems is the key asset KRAN believes it can offer over hard-pressed, financially strapped local authorities. "We are not constrained by timetables. We can offer them friendship," adds Whitbourn.

But, like most of the voluntary sector at present, it is constrained by funding insecurities. Funding from the county council for the Riverside Project has this year shrunk from almost £100k to £75k, and a three-year run of Big Lottery grants for the Supporting Vulnerable Refugee Youth Project will end this autumn.

"Finding long-term funding is a permanent headache and it is harder to get funding for what people may see as unpopular causes," says Whitbourn.

But she believes KRAN's work is best placed as a charity, rather than seeking some form of income. "We have a very valuable role, and I believe it's best met by being independent. We have to keep on this knife edge," she says.

The county council is in the process of making organisational changes that, it believes, will improve the experience of the unaccompanied asylum seekers in its care. Sarah Hammond is assistant director of special children's services at Kent County Council and lead for the unaccompanied asylum seeker care leavers' service. She explains that at present the unaccompanied asylum seeker service is separate from the 0-18 children in care service, but a consultation has begun on plans to integrate it from October.

This, she says, will improve the overall experience of unaccompanied asylum seekers in Kent, particularly by addressing the anomaly of having bespoke education and mental health services for children in care that are currently unavailable to asylum seekers. "At the moment, these are the areas where indigenous children in care are able to access much more needs-focused services. We want to offer parity, but driven by individual needs," she says.

In Kent, the demographic of unaccompanied asylum seekers has shifted over the years away from the majority being under 16 to older young people. Currently, the county council is responsible for 240 under-18s and just under 500 care leavers over 18.

This reflects the picture nationally. Now there are greater numbers of over-18s in the UK than unaccompanied children being cared for by local authorities.

The stark fact is that the majority - 70 per cent - of asylum status claims made once they have reached 18 are refused. If a further appeal fails, they become All Rights Exhausted (ARE) and no longer funded by the Home Office.

At this point, local authorities are expected to withdraw care leaver support for AREs, and they are deemed to be illegal immigrants. But some may continue to foot the bill to meet their duties under the Children (Leaving Care) Act, racking up large budget shortfalls. Kent County Council claims its bill for supporting AREs is currently £2m.

Research by the Office of the Children's Commissioner for England and the Children's Society shows that only a minority of these young people will go back voluntarily or are deported. The majority continue to live in the UK illegally, unable to access education, work or benefits. Many are forced into destitution, illegal working and crime.

"Once they are over 18, these people often disappear under the radar - they are frightened of being deported," says Children's Society policy adviser Natalie Williams. "They find themselves in limbo, and are often homeless and vulnerable to sexual exploitation and criminalisation. Many have serious mental health needs."

Organisations working with these groups are concerned the recent changes to legal aid, which is no longer provided for most immigration cases, are making it harder for unaccompanied asylum seekers to attain refugee status.

The Refugee Children's Coalition - which includes the Children's Society and children's commissioner for England - is calling for all unaccompanied asylum seekers to be treated in the same way as indigenous care leavers to offer them better protection.

"Our call is for an equalisation of the law so that unaccompanied asylum seekers are treated the same as care leavers in England after 18, and for those who are refused asylum at 18 to continue to get support up to the age of 21, or to 25 if they are in higher education," says Maggie Atkinson, children's commissioner for England.

"Our wish is that they are treated as humanely as our own children and if we can't send them back, then we should allow them to contribute to the society that's taken them in."

ARRIVING ALONE IN THE UK: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT

Jetval* is 17 and when he completes a basic English course at college wants to train to become a plumber. "I like being here. People are friendly," he says. But Jetval is putting on a brave face. He left Albania in December, stopping briefly in Italy and sleeping rough in Calais before the agent paid by his family to smuggle him into the UK told him to get into the back of a lorry bound for the port of Dover. "I was alone and very cold. There was no air in the lorry. I felt I couldn't breathe," he says.

"The lorry stopped at a place where the driver can buy food and he let me out. He told me to find the police. The police were very helpful."

Jetval was sent to the Millbank Reception Centre in Ashford, where he spent two months learning life skills, such as how to cook. "I didn't know any English when I came here," he says. "I had to have an interpreter for everything. Now I can go to the dentist by myself."

He is positive about the help he has received in assimilating into UK culture and is now living in a small flat in Ashford, and attending the Riverside Project. "Coming here helps me to forget. The teacher makes me laugh," he says. "But when I go home, I think about my family."

Jetval was sent away because of a feud that had resulted in his uncle being shot and later his father wounded in the leg. "My life was in danger too," he explains. "When I think about my family, I don't feel good. It is so hard to live. I want to know how my mum and sister are, but I can't be close to my family because they are in danger from people who want to hurt them. I try to forget and distance myself. But it's too hard."

It is clear Jetval feels very alone: "In my culture, there would be lots of older people to look after me. I've made some friends and play football, but it doesn't fulfil me. I can't talk about my experiences with them."

He is now waiting on a decision on his asylum status. If it is granted, then he would like to live with his aunt in London: "I want to start a life here, to learn, to work. I want to start another story."

*Not his real name

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN UNACCOMPANIED ASYLUM SEEKER ARRIVES IN DOVER

• They are discovered or make themselves known to the authorities
• They are interviewed and if deemed to be under 18 are granted leave to remain until they are 17-and-a-half when they can reapply for further leave to remain
• They are looked after by Kent County Council social services and their needs assessed
• If they are female, or male and under 16, they go directly to foster placements and are assigned a social worker. If they are male and aged 16 to 17, they are sent to the Millbank Reception Centre in Ashford where they receive full board for up to two months
• If they have additional needs, such as mental health problems, they may be moved into a more protective environment such as foster care. The majority of 16- to 17-year-olds move into shared accommodation and are enrolled in education with the aim of integrating them into the community
• At 17-and-a-half, they must make an asylum claim. If it is accepted, they are granted leave to remain for five years and can then apply for indefinite leave to remain
• If refugee status is refused, they can appeal
• If they are refused again, they become Appeal Rights Exhausted and Home Office funding is withdrawn. They are then classed as illegal immigrants

YOUNG ASYLUM SEEKERS

• 1,174 young people under the age of 18 claimed asylum in the UK in 2013
• Just under two-thirds were aged 16 or 17, while a further quarter were aged 14 or 15.
• 70 were younger than 14
• 86% were male
• More than three-quarters came from just six countries with the largest number - 445 - from Albania, followed by Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Vietnam and Syria
• 29% of asylum claims by children aged 17 or under were granted
• 70% of claims made once young people reach 18 are turned down

Source: The Refugee Council