Over a year after the policy change was announced, CCLC welcomes the formal reintroduction of legal aid for immigration and nationality law for unaccompanied and separated children in care. Since the passage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO), CCLC has highlighted the negative impact of the removal of legal…
Essex County Council has admitted turning homeless children away from care in breach of section 20 of the Children Act 1989, following a legal challenge by Coram Children’s Legal Centre.
There are over half a million European national children living in the UK, 38% of whom were born here. Non-EU children currently struggle to regularise their immigration status in a system which is complex, expensive and for which there is no free legal advice. For the past year, Coram Children’s Legal Centre has been calling…
The government has issued guidance for legal aid caseworkers confirming that those representing unaccompanied and separated children should apply for legal aid via the exceptional case funding scheme, prior to LASPO amendment. This was confirmed following the Ministry of Justice announcement to reinstate legal aid for unaccompanied and separated children with immigration matters last month,…
Coram Children’s Legal Centre welcomes today’s announcement from the Ministry of Justice that immigration matters for unaccompanied and separated children in care will be brought back into the scope of legal aid. We look forward to working with the Ministry of Justice to amend the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO)…
On 3 July 2018 the Greater London Assembly published new guidance aimed at helping young Londoners to secure their citizenship or immigration status. CCLC wholeheartedly welcomes the publication of this guidance by the GLA. Support from the Mayor of London for young people with insecure immigration status – young people Sadiq Khan called ‘London’s DREAMers’…
CCLC recently collaborated with the Youth Justice Legal Centre (‘YJLC’) and others on a guide about ‘county lines’ and trafficking. This new YJLC guide is intended to give criminal lawyers and professionals information about county lines gangs, child trafficking & modern slavery defences for children. County lines, trafficking & child criminal exploitation (CCE) County lines is “the…
Exactly one year after it was promised by the then ministers for immigration and children, the government published its safeguarding strategy for unaccompanied children on 1 November. The strategy’s introductory and welcome message is that refugee and migrant children are children first and foremost, and must not be defined by their immigration status. It makes…
Today the Department for Education and the Home Office jointly published a new safeguarding strategy for unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children, and revised statutory guidance for local authorities on the care of these children.
New duties introduced under the Children & Social Work Act 2017 will include a requirement for local authorities to set out exactly what support they are offering to care leavers and the extension of help of a personal adviser to all care leavers up to the age of 25.
What is the government’s current position and what is it proposing for the status of European children after the UK finally leaves the EU? Following the vote to leave the EU in June 2016, European citizens were left in limbo about their status in the UK, as were British citizens living abroad. Of the three…
‘This is my home’, a new report by Coram Children’s Legal Centre, highlights the fate of hundreds of thousands of children and young people who, despite having been brought up in the UK, are trapped in precarious situations because they are unable to secure permanent status.