Together with co-signatories, CELCIS has written to the UK Government’s Secretary of State for the Home Department, The Rt. Hon. Shabana Mahmood MP to express concerns about proposals set out in the ‘Family Returns: Reforming Asylum Support and Enforcing Family Returns’ consultation to change the provision of support for adult ‘care leavers’.

Our key concerns are:

• These proposals risk creating a two-tier system in terms of support available between ‘care leavers’ who are subject to immigration processes and ‘care leavers’ who do not interact with the immigration system. This could have long term impacts on the former group of young people, forcing them to move housing, impacting the stability of their key relationships, education and links to their communities and exposing them to an increased risk of destitution, trafficking and exploitation.
• The proposals are contrary to current policy regarding improving transitions for care experienced young people moving to adulthood and in reducing poverty, which creates further complexity in how practitioners support these young people. There may also be unintended consequences for wider services such as housing, health or safeguarding.
• Any potential consequences for children across Scotland, or other UK nations or crown dependencies of the UK, do not appear to have been explored, despite acknowledgement that the proposals will interact with devolved local authority responsibilities.

CELCIS and co-signatories call on the UK Government to ensure that the support provided for care experienced children and young people in the UK supports the needs, and realises the rights of children and young people, and is not prohibited due to immigration concerns.

This letter is co-signed by CELCIS, Clan Childlaw, Scottish Refugee Council, Social Work Scotland, Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights), and Who Cares? Scotland.

Read the letter