‘For a while out of orbit’: listening to what unaccompanied asylum-seeking/refugee children in the UK say about their rights and experiences in private foster care

Helen Connolly

There is limited information in the child welfare literature on the circumstances and needs of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children living in the United Kingdom. This article provides insight into the experiences and feelings of these young people by reporting the findings from a narrative-based research project involving 29 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children age 12 to 21 from a variety of African and Asian countries, with the goal of exploring how these children perceived their rights while in private foster care in the UK. The majority of these children had traveled from countries in conflict such as Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Palestine, Uganda, Cameroon, Vietnam, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Despite an increased number of notifications to local authorities in recent years on abuse and severe maltreatment cases in private foster care, the arrangements of most unaccompanied, refugee and migrant children in private care are unknown. Private foster care is an arrangement that is made privately, without the involvement of the local governmental authority, for the care of a child under the age of 16 by someone other than a parent or close relative and as an arrangement that endures beyond 28 days. Kinship or 'family and friends' care is a separate arrangement from private foster care. The lines of demarcation are drawn between these arrangements according to the different legal ties children have with their carers, with kinship care involving a 'close relative'.

The findings of this article suggest that these children's rights are negatively impacted by the UK's system of monitoring and protection, and reveal the vulnerability of unaccompanied children in private foster care to neglect, material hardship, abuse and exploitation. Most of the children and young people in this study had considered themselves deprived of any rights. In particular, a couple of girls found it difficult to discern the boundaries between exploitation, servitude and expressions of responsibility and reciprocity within the term 'private foster care'. The authors argue that the private care providers should go through the same assessments and procedures as kinship or foster families.