unacccompanied asylum seeking children

[Surburbia]

Does anyone have experience with the above category of fostering?

Also, does anyone have any info about if IFA's ever have these young people to foster as I've read it's mainly LAs.

@AnneElliott. No, we won't foster until our teens have left home.

The problem you highlight is key. The home office does age assess but the foster carer has already taken anyone assumed to be under 18 into their home. I don't see a way around this. A difficult one.

If there is anyone with experience here I'd be interested to learn.

@JenniferAlisonPhilippaSue

Whilst some cases of over 18's have been found, the majority of teens look older due their tough start in life, you can't accuse them all.

The Home Office do age assess but are often thwarted by the 'lawyers' for the claimants and social services who provide such woeful reports it's embarrassing.

Definitely ask if the Home Office have challenged the age of anyone that you're asked to take. And of course I assume you can refuse anyone who you think is in fact older?

@gogohm loads of cases of over 18s have been found. When I worked for immigration there were men older than me who were trying to pretend they were children. They often had birth certificates to 'prove' it as well.

It was not an uncommon occurrence at all. I'm not talking about borderline cases here where there's an element of doubt - but proper grown men.

One awful case had 2 allegedly Kosavan teenagers placed with a family who had a 15 year old daughter. In reality they weee Albanian blokes in their 30s who we're working on building sites with their other (supposedly deceased) family members. I don't need to go into what the risks are with the 15 years old girl - unfortunately she paid a very high price.

You aren't able to pick and chose whether or not you want a refugee though!

@namechangedforthisoneok - quite.
Did you get my pm? I sent it twice.

[quote Surburbia]@namechangedforthisoneok - quite.
Did you get my pm? I sent it twice.[/quote]

For some reason it's not coming through. Sorry obviously something wrong my end.

Feel free to ask questions on here!

@namechangedforthisoneok

Thanks - here's the pm I sent.

Hi there,

I wonder if you would be kind enough to share some of your experiences fostering your three kids? We are looking into this kind of fostering and would love to hear from someone who is actually doing it.

How old are your three? Which part of the country are you in? Are you with an IFA or LA? Have you fostered other kids who are not asylum seekers and if so how does fostering your current three differ? How long will they stay with you? ie. are they short or long-term? What are the particular challenges? Were you worried that you had no info on your foster children before they arrived and came to stay with you? If you are a woman (I am female) what worries did you have about fostering young men (if they are young men...I watched a youtube video conference with social workers, govt agencies, ngos etc, last night, who suggested most were 17 year old young men (89% male they said). Where you concerned about being a woman looking after older males (IF yours are older) particularly coming from mostly patriarchal cultures?

Lots of questions and I hope you don't mind me asking but I really would be interested in your experience.

I'd be most grateful for more info as it's hard to get online.

Many thanks

@namechangedforthisoneok -
Oh and also:
You say you can't pick or choose whether you get a refugee. How do you feel about this since we are talking about asylum seekers and if they're not refugees why are they seeking asylum?
Are you saying you are happy to foster economic migrants so long as they are under 18?
No judgement from my end at all, I'm just trying to find out more info on fostering this group.

[quote Surburbia]@namechangedforthisoneok

Thanks - here's the pm I sent.

Hi there,

I wonder if you would be kind enough to share some of your experiences fostering your three kids? We are looking into this kind of fostering and would love to hear from someone who is actually doing it.

How old are your three? Which part of the country are you in? Are you with an IFA or LA? Have you fostered other kids who are not asylum seekers and if so how does fostering your current three differ? How long will they stay with you? ie. are they short or long-term? What are the particular challenges? Were you worried that you had no info on your foster children before they arrived and came to stay with you? If you are a woman (I am female) what worries did you have about fostering young men (if they are young men...I watched a youtube video conference with social workers, govt agencies, ngos etc, last night, who suggested most were 17 year old young men (89% male they said). Where you concerned about being a woman looking after older males (IF yours are older) particularly coming from mostly patriarchal cultures?

Lots of questions and I hope you don't mind me asking but I really would be interested in your experience.

I'd be most grateful for more info as it's hard to get online.

Many thanks[/quote]

Hi

Apologies if this isn't too helpful, but I don't feel I can answer a lot of those questions on here that relate directly to the children. However, here are some general comments:

Yes, I've fostered lots of children prior to these children and this feels more challenging, but also more rewarding.

I'm from a town a couple of hours south west of London.

I foster via the local authority. However, my understanding is that many asylum seekers and refugees tend to go with agency carers.

My foster children were unaccompanied siblings. It was initially difficult because of the language and cultural differences.

It was heartbreaking to see how incredibly traumatised they were. They all have PTSD. I was always vigilant to
avoid situations that could trigger this. Unfortunately other people obviously aren't so "in tune" and may innocently say or do things which you wish they wouldn't.

Be aware of (and perhaps research) "secondary traumatic stress" as their trauma has the very real potential to affect you too.

It's incredibly rewarding when you think back to how scared they were when they arrived and see how far they have come.

They have also experienced some inappropriate comments/racism here although generally most people have been very supportive.

I am aware of someone who became a foster carer as she just wanted to take in asylum seekers/refugees. However, whilst you may be able to have a preference, you can't turn down every other child.

@namechangedforthisoneok - thanks very much for your reply.

I think you have more choice to choose who you will take into your home when you are with an IFA. LAs seem to be a lot more stringent about this and punish a foster care for refusing a child, I've read.

Can you say how old your three are?

How does the trauma of these kids differ from other foster children? I thought ALL kids coming into foster care had trauma and related behaviours.

I recently watched Immigration Nation and Living Undocumented on Netflix. They are about the United States, not the UK but I have to say it was heartbreaking.

There are young men and women who have come from places like Honduras who have been in the US for quite a few years, illegally. Quite a few arrived as teens. They fled horrible things, including death threats from drug cartels.

The US system for asylum seekers (refugees) is much different from Canada where I live and probably the UK as well. It all became much more fraught during the Trump administration.

As a law student years ago I did a refugee case for a young man from Afghanistan who was barely 18, and had lost his father and brothers.
Of course there are some that are economic migrants only but it seemed to me most are a combination. Simply because economic disadvantage thrives alongside corruption and instability.

If I had the energy and space, I would think about fostering unaccompanied minors. It would be tough, I know. But so many need help.

[quote Surburbia]@namechangedforthisoneok - thanks very much for your reply.

I think you have more choice to choose who you will take into your home when you are with an IFA. LAs seem to be a lot more stringent about this and punish a foster care for refusing a child, I've read.

Can you say how old your three are?

How does the trauma of these kids differ from other foster children? I thought ALL kids coming into foster care had trauma and related behaviours.[/quote]
Yes you're right. Most foster children are very traumatised.

These children appeared more so than other children I have cared for previously.

@LoveFall
It's a tricky issue. I wish there was transparency and honesty in the foster care system in the UK.

There is no doubt that young people are arriving here for economic reasons primarily (not least because they have travelled through several 'safe' countries before choosing to stop their journey in the UK)

A report on the situation in the Netherlands when they started introducing age assessments before putting them in foster care found an astonishingly high number of men claiming to be under 18 were over 18 (and usually much older). About 90%

No one is claiming that these men are not coming from worse situations than they find in the UK (otherwise why would they come?) The issue is that the system here is that if you can convince the authorities that you are under 18 you get looked after by the foster care system with a foster carer (ie. in someone's home - sometimes a single woman's home) There are safety issues here and this was highlighted in another academic paper of foster carers worrying about the safety of having men in their homes whom they suspected being grown men not under 18s about which they knew nothing. Frankly even having a 17 and a half year old young man in your home about whom you know nothing is a safety concern for a woman.

I would like to foster genuine refugees escaping war/persecution (ie. if you are female in Afghanistan or for eg. gay in Iran). But these genuine refugees are not separated it seems from mostly economic migrants.

You could say: everyone deserves the same help. But if everyone is treated the same, usually it means that people who are most in need get shunted aside (ie. girls - who don't manage to get out and are left behind as less important than boys and men).

As a daughter/niece of refugees that doesn't seem right to me.

I watched a video of a young man from Albania who was fostered. He had a great experience and now has his own flat (unlike a lot of UK born young men who are needy but didn't get into the fostering system under 18 so aren't provided for.) What war was this Albanian young man escaping? He himself admitted: I came here for a better life.

And this was on a fostering site! There seems to be a lot of ignorance/determined blindness to the actual situation operating here.

I would love to hear from people who are very politically aware and educated about this situation and yet still choose to foster this category of young people knowing they are economic migrants and not actually asylum seekers.

@namechangedforthisoneok

You aren't able to pick and chose whether or not you want a refugee though!

Of course you can choose who you have in your home. You should get the full history available and you can put yourself forward or not to take the placement. Similarly you can serve notice (28 days max) if you wish to end the placement. Some LAs and agencies are less transparent but to protect yourself and your family you should go with an agency/LA that gives you maximum information and choice.

@f0stercarer

Yes you can pick who you have in your home.

I don't think you can turn down everyone apart from refugees though.

Where I live there are very few so I don't know if you'd get approved in the first place if that's your criteria?

i think most agencies would be very happy to have a foster carer with that criterion. No shortage of potential placements. There have been specific appeals for people to foster refugees. It's just a case of being clear when you approach an agency.

@f0stercarer that's reassuring to hear. I'm going to ring around some agencies and have a chat with them.

@stopwithallthequestions
In which part of the UK do you live? I know Kent is overwhelmed from a Home Office report I read recently.

it is because kent is so overwhelmed that distribution is countrywide. Kent has no hope of taking the whole burden on its own so it places throughout the country. The usual problems of distance placing being away from existing schools and family don't apply so it is much more straightforward. I was in a meeting with an agency carer who had two Iranian adolescent brothers placed with her. Their mother lived in Manchester so it seemed bonkers to place them in East Sussex but thats just the way things are at the moment.

I'm not a Foster carer but I have worked with asylum seekers in another capacity.
Sometimes people arrive as unaccompanied minors and are removed when they reach young adulthood.
Those cases are always really tough because the person will have settled and been educated in the UK and might not even remember their home country very well.
Sometimes it turns out that there were specific applications that should have been made when the person was still a child. And no one in the LA took responsibility for ensuring the young person had adequate legal representation from someone able to help them do that.
If I was fostering asylum seekers I think I would make it my business to check that the young person had a solicitor and that the solicitor had a clear plan for their route to settled status.

@unlimiteddilutingjuice
Yes, but you haven't elucidated if they are actually refugees. Everyone is an 'asylum seeker' but few are refugees. It's something of a hurdle to take on an economic migrant when there are so many needy UK teens who could do with fostering. That's the issue for me and from reading widely, an issue that puts off a lot of potential foster carers going into this area.
It's easy to say it doesn't matter if they are a refugee or an economic migrant. Until that is, you are opening your own home (and family) to someone. Then I think it does matter.
Or maybe someone can argue against me on this?

Sorry Surburbia I don't have an opinion on that. Its purely a personal choice for you to make.
I will say that the majority of people I came across, I have no idea if they were "genuine" refugees or not. It wasn't my call to make. I was generally helping out with some practical matter and it would have been pretty inapproriate to start quizzing someone on their life history!
I do think everyone deserves the chance to present their case however, so it was deeply frustrating to come across young adults who seemed to have been warehoused in the care system through their teenage years with no thought given to their future afterwards.