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- Author or Editor: Anna Gupta x
- Life Stages and Intergenerationality x
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (UNCRC) and domestic legislation, such as the Children Act 1989 in England and Wales, provide a framework for the provision of state services for unaccompanied migrant youth. This chapter critically examines the implementation of legal and policy frameworks in practice with a focus on age assessments, the provision of care placements, support and leaving care services. Fundamental tensions are explored between immigration and care priorities, particularly for social workers in local authorities experiencing financial cuts and influenced by wider political discourses and government policies. While the vulnerabilities of unaccompanied young migrants and their needs as individuals for tailored support services must be recognised, so must their agency in making decisions about their lives. The chapter concludes with recommendations for policy and practice that promotes young people’s voices, rights and welfare within a social justice framework.
Taking a multi-disciplinary perspective, and one grounded in human rights, Unaccompanied young migrants explores in-depth the journeys migrant youths take through the UK legal and care systems.
Arriving with little agency, what becomes of these children as they grow and assume new roles and identities, only to risk losing legal protection as they reach eighteen?
Through international studies and crucially the voices of the young migrants themselves, the book examines the narratives they present and the frameworks of culture and legislation into which they are placed. It challenges existing policy and questions, from a social justice perspective, what the treatment of this group tells us about our systems and the cultural presuppositions on which they depend.
The state is increasingly experienced as both intrusive and neglectful, particularly by those living in poverty, leading to loss of trust and widespread feelings of alienation and disconnection.
Against this tense background, this innovative book argues that child protection policies and practices have become part of the problem, rather than ensuring children’s well-being and safety.
Building on the ideas in the best-selling Re-imagining child protection and drawing together a wide range of social theorists and disciplines, the book:
• Challenges existing notions of child protection, revealing their limits;
• Ensures that the harms children and families experience are explored in a way that acknowledges the social and economic contexts in which they live;
• Explains how the protective capacities within families and communities can be mobilised and practices of co-production adopted;
• Places ethics and human rights at the centre of everyday conversations and practices.
This chapter draws together themes emerging from the preceding chapters, as well as identifying policy recommendations. It starts by highlighting the insights drawn from the cross-disciplinary approach adopted in the book. It then moves on to stress the social justice and human rights perspective, including the implications of how unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are framed by the authorities that are dealing with their cases. It discusses the need to acknowledge and support young people in exercising their agency, albeit within the confines of structural inequalities. The chapter then provides policy recommendations including the implementation of current laws and guidelines, and a review of age assessment processes. The chapter concludes with examples of new practices and new critical thinking that have emerged in the face of challenges associated with supporting unaccompanied young migrants in recent years.
Taking a multi-disciplinary perspective, and one grounded in human rights, this book explores in depth the journeys unaccompanied child migrants take through the UK legal and care systems. Arriving with little agency, the book considers what becomes of these children as they grow and assume new roles and identities, only to risk losing legal protection as they reach eighteen. Through international studies, and crucially of the young migrants themselves, the book examines the narratives they present, and the frameworks of culture and legislation into which they are placed. Challenging existing policy, it questions, from a social justice perspective, what the treatment of this group tells us about our systems and the cultural presuppositions on which they depend. Contributors are researchers and practitioners in film-making, human geography, law, psychology, psychotherapy, social work and sociology,
Taking a multi-disciplinary perspective, and one grounded in human rights, this book explores in depth the journeys unaccompanied child migrants take through the UK legal and care systems. Arriving with little agency, the book considers what becomes of these children as they grow and assume new roles and identities, only to risk losing legal protection as they reach eighteen. Through international studies, and crucially of the young migrants themselves, the book examines the narratives they present, and the frameworks of culture and legislation into which they are placed. Challenging existing policy, it questions, from a social justice perspective, what the treatment of this group tells us about our systems and the cultural presuppositions on which they depend. Contributors are researchers and practitioners in film-making, human geography, law, psychology, psychotherapy, social work and sociology,
Taking a multi-disciplinary perspective, and one grounded in human rights, this book explores in depth the journeys unaccompanied child migrants take through the UK legal and care systems. Arriving with little agency, the book considers what becomes of these children as they grow and assume new roles and identities, only to risk losing legal protection as they reach eighteen. Through international studies, and crucially of the young migrants themselves, the book examines the narratives they present, and the frameworks of culture and legislation into which they are placed. Challenging existing policy, it questions, from a social justice perspective, what the treatment of this group tells us about our systems and the cultural presuppositions on which they depend. Contributors are researchers and practitioners in film-making, human geography, law, psychology, psychotherapy, social work and sociology,
This chapter provides an overview of the issues faced by unaccompanied child migrants in their search for safety and security. It highlights legal definitions used in national and international law, and the rights that such young people can claim under those laws. It outlines the demography of flows of migrant youth, including numbers, nationalities, and gender. The diversity of the group is highlighted, along with the way in which their treatment and experiences vary significantly depending on how they are framed by the immigration and welfare authorities that they come into contact with. The chapter examines the role of a social justice framework in understanding migrant experiences, an acknowledgement of young people’s agency, and the role of social workers and others working with young people. The chapter finishes with an overview of the subsequent chapters divided into three main sections: framing the youth migrant debate, exploring migrant youth identities, and international perspectives.
This introductory chapter provides a background of child protection and its intersection with wider social policies and social trends. The modern child protection system emerged in the 1960s, rooted in a concern to stop babies dying or being ‘battered’ by parents who were considered to be suffering from a lack of empathic mothering in their own lives. Poverty, bad housing, and other social factors were screened out as holding helpful explanatory value in relation to why some babies were seriously harmed by their carers. From those beginnings, rooted in care for babies who were powerless and voiceless, and compassion for emotionally deprived parents, the system has expanded enormously in terms of remit, research base, influence, and power within a complex and changing society. The chapter then considers the core aspects and assumptions behind the welfare state and the emergence of a discourse around individual responsibility and risk that encompasses cause, consequence, and attribution.
This chapter traces the history of attempts to improve the way families look after children using the UK system as an exemplar. As part of an increasingly residual role, the child protection system has become narrowly focused on an atomised child, severed from family, relationships, and social circumstances: a precarious object of ‘prevention’, or rescue. As its categories and definitions have gradually grown, the gap between child protection services and family support has widened. This has a number of antecedents. First, with the exception of a few decades of the 20th century, history shows a strong tendency towards individual social engineering to produce model citizens, with parenting practices the primary focus of state attention. Second, the post-war welfare consensus has withered in the face of market enchantment and a burgeoning commissioning paradigm.
