Supporting unaccompanied children | House of Lords

Councils have an excellent track record in welcoming unaccompanied children for many years and continue to work hard to support the many programmes for refugees and asylum seekers in current operation.

View allSafeguarding children articles

Key messages

Unaccompanied asylum seeking children: Councils have an excellent track record in welcoming unaccompanied children for many years and continue to work hard to support the many programmes for refugees and asylum seekers in current operation.

The number of lone children claiming asylum and coming into the care of councils after their arrival in the UK now stands at over 4,000. This represents a doubling of the number over the past two years. In addition to a growing number of children in families supported by the Syrian programme and other refugee resettlement schemes, councils continue to help large numbers of children in destitute families whose asylum applications have been refused by the Home Office.

Calais: We now need to work together to build a system that will need to meet the needs of vulnerable children at pace and at scale. The LGA, partner organisations regionally and nationally, and many councils have been working very hard to support the very rapid scaling-up of the arrangements that will support new arrivals the Calais refugee camp.

Missing media item.