U.K. 'Quietly' announced it won't be taking anymore unaccompanied child refugees

[Motherofhowmany]

Absolutely appalling, we've only resettled 350 of the promised 3000.

I work with some of these children. The things they have seen are horrendous.

www.independent.co.uk/news/only-350-syrian-refugee-children-will-be-allowed-to-settle-in-britain-thousands-less-than-promised-a7569691.html

Dental age assessment is not precise but it provides a realistic quantifiable estimate of age which is not matched by any other method.

Comparison of dental tests with genuine birth certificates shows that 42 per cent of the age estimates are within six months of the true age and 68 per cent of age estimates are within one year of the true age.

jujubeanz. But how? We have been hosting unaccompanied children for many years. Where are they to live? Where are they to be educated? Once they are within our country they have a right to an education. Local schools do not wish to take a maybe 15 year old male in to a year 10 class ( and I really can't blame them) I have actually had a 15 year old female who turned out to be 27! That cost the LA thousands for the 10 months she lived with me. So the young people can not receive education immediately, this in turn puts a strain on the foster placement. Eventually they may be offered a few hours a week in a purpose built unit to learn English... It is easy to say 'rather than not help at all' but just how do you suppose we are to do this given that what I have said is not entirely made up? Exactly where are these 'children' to go while the various LA's are taking months and months to do the 'checks' on the apparent 'families'
Have you any idea of the safeguarding issues to other children within a foster home of having an unknown male ( possible) adult sleeping just down the hallway? And I can assure you that there are few foster families without other children, either birth, Grandchildren or other children in care.

Thanks for the insight thisisthereality. Sadly the story you tell is exactly how I feared the reality would be .

In my LA dental age assessments haven't been carried out for many years. At one time, two social workers would conduct an age interview ( with very limited training) This took literally hours and the result only a matter of opinion at a very high cost. It is too time consuming and too expensive

Excellent copy/pasting there, AnonBunchofNumbers. Must have taken you hours! Perhaps you could share your conclusions with the British Dental Association, which condemned the idea of Dental age checks for refugees on the grounds that they were "not only an inaccurate method for assessing age but both inappropriate and unethical".

What's your suggestion, thisisthereality? I think we all know that these are likely to be damaged, traumatised refugees who are hard to care for. And yet: they exist, this is a global crisis, we can't just go "well this is hard so let's pull up the drawbridge and let other countries deal with them."

I think I've done my bit 53rdAndBird! The asylum seeking children will still arrive here weekly, the ones that arrive at Dover, exhausted, tearful and displaced. The children trafficked from Vietnam, from Eritrea etc. We do not have anywhere for them to go ( unless you have better suggestions or will offer any of them a home yourself, the approval process will take around 6 months to become a foster carer)
These children from Syria will also have nowhere to go once they are here. So bring in all 3000 and put them where?

I'm not asking for you personally to take in any more refugees, thisisthereality. I'm genuinely asking you, as someone with firsthand experience of working with these refugees, what you think we as a country should do to deal better with the issues you've raised? (Personally, I'd start with rethinking our pitiful approach to social care funding for starters, but for many reasons as well as just this...)

I was quoting Professor Graham Roberts, a paediatric dentist at King’s College London. The British Dental Association take the view that a 68% per cent of age estimates within one year of the true age is inaccurate. Other people think that 68% is good enough to use it as a test to tell the difference between a 14 yo and a 20+ yo. Its a matter of perspective.

face recognition software was used to age them, some were guessed to be 36!

The makers of this software themselves said it was produced just for fun/social media use and in no way accurate.

I would be happy with the dental assessments accuracy rate of 68% as long as we allow a margin of error of two years. So if dental assessment suggests a person is 18 we would allow him to be recorded as 16 if he says he is 16.
What is the alternative to dental assessments? What currently happens? The interview process mentioned by reality seems less reliable and more reliant on individual judgements which can't be good.

53rd. I'd say that if the local authorities are saying we only have the capacity to home 400 children then that is all we can take. Yes many people will jump up and down and cry about how we promised to take 3000 but life changes. There is not a never ending supply of money. There is also not an ever ending supply of foster homes.
The only other suggestion I'd have is if LA's agreed to undertake the appropriate 'checks' in a time limited manor. The wastage of money I have seen first hand with SW's sending non English speaking families dbs forms to complete on line (!) then leaving it a few weeks to inform the young person that, sadly, their uncle/ cousin etc hadn't responded to the checks required and the child would therefore have to stay in foster care ' a while longer'. Then a home visit to the 'family' may take a month to organise and, once done, the bedroom looked a bit tatty! Ffs these kids are from war zones!

reality, that's a very insightful post.

We as a country are very poor at ensuring people integrate properly into our culture etc. Yes we all have different cultures but there is a lack of mutual respect for differences. Which is made worse by things like poverty.

What percentage of the 350 children who came in were girls. I ask because all I saw was boys/men coming in.

Thanks for your very informative posts, thisisthereality.

Is this something money would help with, then, to greatly speed up the process of checking the destination families and also to increase access to appropriate education? (Although obviously it requires nous as well as funding to grasp that sending online DBS forms to someone with little English isn't going to be effective.)

I know social work is underfunded across all areas, not just unaccompanied minors, since the "austerity" cuts.

oliversmumsarmy I don't know about percentages of girl / boy unaccompanied minors but we do get families with children of both sexes. My local church was working with some of the families who were housed nearby. The church had daily sessions where the mothers could bring their children to play with toys and have a hot meal. It was really Important to those families as It Was the only place they could go with their children where they could relax. The accommodation they were staying in had a Communal Room that could Be used all day long but the young single men who were housed in the accommodation would be in there and the women and children found it intimidating to be sharing the space.

I would still like to know the answer.

I think the difference between the refugee crisis we have today and the refugees we had during WW2 is that in WW2 the fathers and men of a family in general made sure that their wives and children got out first then they would follow whilst today we have huge numbers of men who have escaped and left their wives and children behind.

In todays terms the kindertransport would be filled with predomitably boys and men not children of both sexes.

You only have to see the pp observation how the men have taken over the communal room. Why are they not making sure their wives and children share the space

Why are they not making sure their wives and children share the space
Different religion, different culture. The 'men' of the family come first.

so previous posters were correct......daily mail readers or not.....what reality has said confirms the worries people have.

and they are as valid as anyone else

I thought the councils were having a funding problem with the elderly at the moment plus we have a housing crisis.

Wouldn't it be better for them to go somewhere which shares their culture then.

Why are they not making sure their wives and children share the space
Different religion, different culture. The 'men' of the family come first.

But the men were head of their households in Germany Poland and elsewhere in Europe with that comes the responsibility of saving your family not leaving them to their fate.

As reality said, we can offer what we don't have. If there are no spaces, there are no spaces.
there are few people who wish to become foster carers in that way.
I wouldn't want to do it, and I can't imagine any of my friends wanting to. Space for starters, people just don't have spare bedrooms!

Sorry just noticed different answer.

So the church has to provide extra stuff because no one will tell the men who are in the communal room that they have to share.

If it is so different a culture then why not go to a country that is more in keeping with their views.

Why come to Europe and the Americas why not go to Africa or another country in Asia

Yes, under austerity, central government has slashed funding to local councils by huge amounts since 2010. It's had an impact on all areas, including social work and social care.

The Tories went to the last election on a manifesto of further massive cuts in all welfare areas. Both cuts to local council funding, and cuts to eg direct disability benefits, which of course throws more weight on council and NHS services. Changes to the DWP which end up throwing people onto the mercy of foodbanks. Bedroom tax and other housing changes which end up costing councils more and pushing people on the streets.

It wasn't any kind of secret: people voted knowing this. It's a choice.