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Understand My Reality
Young Refugees and Asylum Seekers: strategies to overcome the many difficulties faced by this vulnerable, yet resilient, group of young people
Wednesday 3 March 2010
Central Birmingham
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About the Children’s Society
The Children’s Society has developed expertise in working with refugee children over many years. We use the learning gained from our direct practice to inform local and national policy makers about the problems facing children and young people. Our National Policy Adviser, Lisa Nandy, chairs Refugee Children's Consortium, and we are currently leading the OutCry! Campaign to end the immigration detention of children.
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Purpose of the conference
Understand My Reality will be a rare and inspiring opportunity for professionals working with refugee and asylum seeking children and young people in a range of settings to come together to share learning and discuss challenges in our day to day practice. Delegates will also have the opportunity to hear direct from refugee young people, learning from their experiences and their ideas about how they can be supported to have a Good Childhood.
The conference is hosted by the Leading Edge Initiative, which is a national 3 year Lottery funded programme to support young refugees to access and achieve in education.
The agenda will include:
- National perspectives on key developments and strategic issues affecting young refugees and asylum seekers
- Bitesize research sessions which outline some of the latest findings on the experience of young people and issues
such as bullying
- Workshops which will feature examples of good practice from the Children’s Society, The Children’s Legal Centre and ECPAT
- A panel session which will look at the impact of the Outcry! campaign and its implications for service provision to young refugees. Introduced by a performance from Iceandfire Theatre Group
- Other materials which feature young refugees and asylum seekers speaking for themselves
Workshop sessions include:
Mental health/emotional wellbeing and building resilience, Refugee young carers, Age-related rights and entitlements, Trafficking: awareness and impacts, Working with parents and families, and Accessing and achieving in education.
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Who should attend
- Specialist providers of services to refugees and asylum seekers
- Social workers
- Children and young people’s service commissioners
- Voluntary sector providers of services to at risk young people
- Specialist child sexual exploitation teams and police
- Education providers – teachers, EAL/EMA leads and teams, further education staff
- Mental health practitioners
- Youth workers and Connexions staff
- Counsellors, mentors and advice workers
- Community safety officers and community police
- UK Borders Agency staff and sub-contractors (eg Group 4)
- Academics and policy makers
- Social housing providers
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Delegate fee
Standard rate: £150
Reduced rate: £120
(Small charities with less than 10 employees)
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Projects leading the workshops
The Children’s Society Harbour Project is a school-based mental health service for young refugees and asylum seekers in Oxford. The project works in four designated schools with significant refugee populations and also occasionally in other local schools. Regular consultation with link staff in schools is integral to the work of the project. In a typical year the project works directly with about 45 young people and consults about a much larger number. The clinical work takes place in schools where individual, group and family therapeutic work is offered as well as joint working with other agencies. A significant proportion of our work is with older adolescents who are unaccompanied minors. When it is appropriate we work with interpreters. We also work closely with other professionals, especially social workers, teachers, solicitors and staff from other voluntary sector organisations. The Harbour Project has links with Oxford City CAMHS.
The Children’s Society Include Project is home to four strands of work:
The National Young Carers Initiative which works nationally to promote good practice for young carers and their families, this involves working with policy makers in Local Authorities to put into place guidance to support young cares and their parents, providing training to statutory services and resources to agencies and individuals supporting those working with young carers.
The Hampshire Young Carers Initiative which works within Hampshire to promote good practice and works to support professionals working with young carers and their families with substance misuse issues, mental ill health problems and disabilities. They also help shape policy and have recently been involved in the creation of a new pan-Hampshire protocol for Substance Misuse and Mental ill health.
The Leading Edge Project works with young refugee and asylum seekers supporting them to be inclusive in education.
The Family Inclusion Project works to support young carers who are refugee and asylum seekers focusing on inclusion in health services to prevent them providing inappropriate support such as translating for medical appointments.
It receives funding from the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Health. It is also funded by Hampshire County Council to deliver development work across Hampshire.
The Children's Legal Centre is a unique, independent national charity concerned with law and policy affecting children and young people. The Children's Legal Centre has many years of experience in providing legal advice and representation to children, their carers and professionals throughout the UK. It opened in 1981, as the major UK project for the International Year of the Child, and is staffed by lawyers and professionals with experience in child law. The Centre is funded by grants from Central Government and by charitable trusts.
The Migrant Children's Project aims to assist non-legal specialists and front-line professionals and carers in ensuring that the children with whom they are dealing obtain the services and assistance to which they are legally entitled.
In addition to providing detailed advice on the impact of immigration law on services to children, the project has campaigned to ensure that laws and policies defend the rights of asylum seeking, refugee and migrant children and to extend the protections available to them.
ECPAT UK stands for End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes.
We are a leading children’s rights organisation campaigning against the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the UK and on its international aspects. In particular, we focus on the protection of trafficked children and children exploited in tourism and the prevention of such crimes. We do this in a number of ways:
- Promoting the rights of children and the measures to protect them from commercial sexual exploitation and abuse. Encouraging UK citizens, organisations and the government to take action. Working with the media to increase public awareness
- Working on reports, briefing papers and other informational and educational material to build on knowledge of the issues and for campaigning and policy development
- Providing training throughout the UK and internationally on the protection of children in tourism and the protection of child victims of trafficking. In particular, running a national child trafficking training program to increase awareness and highlight the specific support needs of trafficked children
- Working with children’s rights organisations, child protection agencies, communities and government to identify strategies to combat child trafficking and the exploitation of children in tourism
- Working in partnership with various organisations to build a common understanding and enhance expertise on protecting children from commercial sexual exploitation in the UK and internationally.
- Regularly working with other ECPAT partners in Europe on projects and policy development. Two examples are the adoption of the Code of Conduct for the protection of children from sexual exploitation in travel and tourism in 2001 and 2003 and since 1999 working on a joint East-West 20 country counter-trafficking project involving training for police and social workers.
The Children’s Society LEAP Programme is based in Leeds and operates across the city. LEAP stands for Listening, Empowering, Advocacy and Participation and it works to promote the inclusion of disabled children as well as refugee and asylum seeking young people, particularly in education and within the community.
Our staff work with refugee and asylum seeking young people to overcome barriers so that they can reach their full potential. At LEAP, we aim to identify ways of meeting the needs of children and young people by engaging with them and listening to them. We provide services that are supportive and empowering to children and young people. Their participation is fundamental to everything we do so we listen to what they need and involve them as partners in our work.
We aim to raise awareness, promote diversity, and encourage inclusion and integration.
The Children’s Society Blackburn Young Refugees Programme is based in Blackburn and has been developed to recruit, train and support volunteers in order to befriend and provide mentoring to refugee and asylum-seeking children, young people and their families.
Our volunteers work within groups or with individuals to provide support in a range of ways in order to safeguard the childhood of young refugees and asylum seekers – for instance, helping people to understand English documents, organising and accompanying them to appointments and introducing them to new social groups and settings.
While the project relies on recruiting volunteers of principle to support these young people and their families, we also recognise that most volunteers get involved in this kind of work because they want to put their social conscience into action, or to gain experience to take their training and career forward.
To ensure that the programme is successful, we offer volunteers induction sessions, training and supervision. We also arrange external speakers, CRB checks and insurance, and provide expenses and references.
Equally importantly, we work with other professionals to ensure that our volunteers are well-matched to these vulnerable children, young people and families. Looking ahead, we aim to develop and explore opportunities for volunteers to continue this type of work.
The Children’s Society Leading Edge Initiative works across England to help young refugees aged 11-18, to access and achieve within education.
Our experience and research tell us that many young refugees either do not get a school place or face long waits to get into schools. We know that many young refugees, once in school, face a range of challenges in fulfilling their potential. These include learning English, understanding education systems, making friends, and encountering racism and bullying. Young refugees often take on caring responsibilities for family members and need support and understanding in managing these responsibilities.
In partnership with schools, colleges and other support services, Leading Edge aims to improve the experience of young refugees in education. We work in Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, London, Manchester, and Oxford to provide advice and support to parents and carers, homework clubs and anti-bullying projects, and raise awareness of the needs and experiences of young refugees.
Young refugees are also an asset to schools and some schools have developed new and innovative ways of working with refugees that benefit the school community. Leading Edge aims to support schools and other services by helping develop and share this good practice. |
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