Advising
The information on our website aims to enable professionals to take steps to secure services for a child or a young person. Once all these steps have been exhausted, it may be necessary to seek professional legal advice or make a referral to another service, such as professional mediation.
While every effort is made to ensure the information provided is accurate, there might be times when you will need further clarification, such as when there is a change in the law. In particular, care needs to be taken as to the immigration status of the child with whom you are working. The law applies differently to children who are asylum seekers, those with limited permission to remain following a decision on their asylum claim, and those with full refugee status.
It will be essential for you to know the immigration status of the children you are working with if you are to assist them to obtain the services to which they are entitled. As the law applies differently according to immigration status, we strongly suggest that you familiarise yourself with the key definitions given in the glossary, which will occur regularly in the questions and answers, if you are not already familiar with them:
In English law, a child is anyone below the age of 18. Immigration law also defines a child as a person under 18 years of age, but because many asylum seekers arrive in the UK undocumented (and hence with no independent corroboration of their stated age), the definition of a child in the Immigration Rules is qualified: '...a child means a person who is under 18 years of age or who, in the absence of documentary evidence establishing age, appears to be under that age.' (Immigration Rules, paragraph 349).
Please note that recently there have been some significant changes within the Home Office. The Government body responsible for asylum issues is now the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), which assumes the responsibilities of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) for managing immigration control in the UK, including applications for permission to stay, citizenship and asylum. Support for asylum seekers is no longer overseen by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), and will be referred to as BIA support or asylum support.
Click on the topics below to view the FAQ's:
Age assessment Support for unaccompanied children and children in families Education under 16 Further and Higher Education Work and training Transition at 18 BIA and Government Policy Health