Use this page to learn about the support you can get as an Unaccompanied Young Person.
If you are a young person who has come to the UK without a parent or anyone who is able to care for you legally you will be known as an Unaccompanied Young Person, the Local Authority (B&NES) becomes responsible for your care and support.
When you enter early adulthood (age 18) the Care Experienced Team will continue to support you. There are a lot of things that may feel uncertain for you, and we will do our best to help you work through this and explain as best we can what is happening at different stages of you seeking asylum in the UK.
For general assistance, follow the Home Office Immigration process.
You will need a solicitor to make a claim for asylum to the Home Office. A solicitor will need to offer you legal advice. Your social worker (SW) and/or Personal Advisor will support you to access legal support as soon as you arrive in to the care of BANES.
It is important to know that your SW/PA are not responsible for the decisions that are made by the Home Office about whether you are able to stay in the UK or not.
This means we will think about all possible outcomes of your asylum claim with you from the age of 16. This is to ensure you are clear about what may happen depending on what decisions the Home Office may make. The outcomes that need to be considered across different areas of life are:
- Supporting you whilst your claim progresses, or through an appeal process (no final decision made),
- Supporting you if you are awarded ‘leave to remain’ in the UK, helping you to settle in the UK.
- Supporting you to return to your country or origin if you are considered ‘appeal rights exhausted’ and solicitors say there are no further grounds for a new claim.
We will provide maintenance (in line with Universal Credit rate) until you have ‘recourse to public funds’ (which means you are allowed to apply for Universal Credit). If you do not get recourse to public funds, see offer below.
Your options will be dependent on your immigration status but you will be supported to explore your options and we. See EET section.
If you have been granted ‘Leave to Remain’ and therefore have ‘recourse to public funds’, we will support a move on plan (from residential or 16+ provision) into alternative accommodation (see accommodation section 2 of the Local Offer) as you will have other options available to you.
If you have not been granted Leave to Remain and you have an open asylum claim or are in the appeals process, then your options will be more limited. Whilst your claim or appeal is being progressed by the Home Office, we will continue to pay for your accommodation in the area you are/have been living if you are connected or we could support you to move closer to B&NES if you live out of the area if this is something you would want to consider.
We will not support you to move to another area you are not connected to when you do not have any decision from the Home Office.
We will support you to Stay Put with foster carers is this is an arrangement everyone is agreeable to.
We will ensure you have your ARC card. Once you have Leave to Remain you will need to have an e-visa so you can prove your right to be in the UK. We can support you to set this up.
We will fund your first provisional UK Driving Licence.
We will support you to apply for and pay for one travel document.
We will ensure that you have translated information, into your preferred language to ensure you can easily read plans, options, and decisions if you require this.
We will ensure that any meetings/conversations that require an interpreter is provided.
If you are over 18 and have been told that you have no further right to appeal a negative Home Office decision then we will support you to, and pay for you to have a second opinion with a different solicitor to see whether there is any new or relevant information that may give you grounds to make a fresh claim.
If a solicitor offers a second opinion that says there is no ground for a fresh claim, then we will have to undertake a Human Rights Act Assessment to determine whether we can continue to support you or not.
We will consider what support you have from friends and family and whether there are any legal or practical barriers that we can support you to overcome to return to your country of origin.
We will continue to support you while we complete this assessment.
We will support you to think about returning to your country of origin and liaise with the Home Office to help with this process, this would mean completing a Voluntary Return Home Application if you wanted to pursue this. We would continue to support you whilst the Home Office supports your return.
If you do not want to make a voluntary return application and we are unable to continue to support you to have somewhere to live or give you any money, will ensure we share information about where you can get support from (local charities and migrant help services) to assist you. We will give you a months’ notice if we are withdrawing support to you.