“They made me feel like myself”: Supporting young people through age disputes
Lisa Matthews, Policy and Campaigns Manager, 13th May 2024
“When I came to Young Roots, they treated me different. They listened to me more.
When I come to them, they made me feel like myself, like I could talk to them. I talked a lot to the doctor [Helen Bamber Foundation psychologist] about this too.
They give me time to explain my feelings, the things that happened to me.”
- Young Person
Today, we have published a joint report with the Helen Bamber Foundation, sharing our experience of supporting young people through the age dispute process.
The ages of children arriving in the UK to seek safety are being routinely disputed by the authorities supposed to protect them, despite international guidance that the age assessment process should be used as a last resort.
Far too many children are being wrongly treated as adults, meaning that children are denied the rights, care and protection they are entitled to and face serious harm, including the risk of being sent to Rwanda under the government’s asylum plan.
As the Helen Bamber Foundation, Humans for Rights Network and Refugee Council’s previous research has shown, between January 2022 and June 2023 at least 1,300 refugee children were placed in unsupervised adult accommodation and detention after being wrongly age assessed on arrival in the UK.
Our experience shows that children who have their age disputed find the process stressful, confusing and even retraumatising. Instead of believing children (who are the ones most often right about their age during this process), there has been an increase in age disputes conducted both by the Home Office, and local authorities.
Our new report shows that by using a holistic, child-friendly and trauma-informed approach, the age determination process can be more accurate, and reduce the harm to children in the process.
This approach allows young people to better demonstrate their age in nuanced ways, in different settings and under different conditions. Independent professionals working with young people in this way can provide good insight into the process.
We want fewer age disputes and fairer age assessments, with the safety of children, not immigration control, as the most important factor. When age assessments are necessary, we recommend that all age assessments should be led by a holistic approach, as described in our report.
Find out more from our Casework Manager Dan Smith, and the Helen Bamber Foundation team, in the webinar below: