Policy, Campaigning and Influencing 2024-2027

Why policy, campaigning and influencing? Why now?

This is a new work area for Young Roots, which remains predominantly a frontline service delivery organisation. This new focus is crucial in an unprecedentedly hostile environment. Current laws, policy, and practice prevent young asylum seekers and refugees from accessing and enjoying their rights and entitlements, add to the trauma and adverse experiences of young people, and severely impact Young Roots staff’s ability to work towards positive outcomes with young people (which also has a negative impact on staff wellbeing).

How we will work for change

Young Roots will work on policy: understanding the current and upcoming situation in asylum policy and law; tracking patterns of implementation by talking to young people and frontline staff; sharing and learning cross-sector about the situation and developments; communicating our position on policies, and what we think should change. 

Young Roots will work on influencing: encouraging best practice on a systemic level at the local authority level through meetings, other non-public events, communicating with decision-makers and power-holders; and highlighting patterns of poor practice and providing examples of good practice.  

Young Roots will develop our capacity in campaigning: this is public-facing activity - communicating what is wrong, what we want to change, what people can do about it, and supporting people to take action that leads to change. This will involve external comms (including media engagement); mobilising the public through comms with call to actions; and public events with local communities and local politicians. 

Throughout our work in this area the needs and views of young people will be central – in informing us of which issues we need to focus on, what change is required, and taking part directly in policy and campaigning activity (with intensive training, preparation and support from Young Roots) to the extent that they wish to be involved.  

Our key issues

There are many policy issues within and adjacent to the asylum system that require positive change. We cannot work on all of them, and our policy priorities will determined by criteria including: young people identifying an issue as priority; the issue having a big impact on young people's lives and ability to access and enjoy rights and entitlements (as identified by young people and staff); where Young Roots staff have specialist expertise; and where there is an opportunity to achieve change. 

Our current priorities based on the criteria above are as follows: 

  1. The ‘Illegal’ Migration Act (IMA) 

  2. Lack of legal aid representation 

  3. Refugee homelessness 

  4. Age disputes  

  5. Young people’s priority – this may align with one of the priorities identified by Young Roots as an organisation, or it may be a different issue.  

We will not deliver the same quantity or intensity of activity for all of our policy focus areas. For example, on the IMA, we will contribute to national, sector-wide efforts to lessen its impact (and engage our supporters where there are clear opportunities to do so); while on a local level we will lead on supporting local authorities and local communities to speak out and take action against the IMA and associated policies.  

How you can get involved

  • Contact us if you think your workplace might be interested in a message-testing workshop – a way for us to make sure the language we’re using is interesting and compelling to the public.  

Read more about our key issues

  • The IMA is a dismantling of the principles and processes of protection and is in effect an asylum ban for almost all people who arrive to seek safety in the UK. If fully enacted, it will have a devastating impact on people seeking safety – a permanent denial of asylum, settlement and citizenship – and is an existential threat to those of working to support people seeking asylum. The law makes it a duty to forcibly remove those who fall under its criteria. While this will be almost certainly impossible to carry out, it will likely lead to an indefinite period of limbo, homelessness and destitution for hundreds of thousands of people. Young people – who will not be able to secure protection and who will face removal once they turn 18 or are deemed to be 18 – will be driven away from support services by its provisions and will be at much higher risk of harm and exploitation.

    Listen to our Policy & Campaigns Manager, Lisa Matthews, talking about the IMA on the Social Matters podcast

  • The majority of people seeking safety are unable to find a free legal representation. The asylum legal system is extremely complicated and confusing, and it is essential that people have a legal representative to navigate it and to explain to the Home Office – whose starting point is so often one of disbelief – why it is not safe for them to be in their home country. The consequences of not securing protection in the UK can be very grave – a return to persecution, imprisonment and even death. It has never been harder to find legal representation for people seeking safety, because of drastic cuts to legal aid and years of asylum decisions not being made by the Home Office. For young people, many of whom are separated from their family and are here in the UK alone for the first time, expert legal advice is essential and yet currently unobtainable.

    "Young people find the asylum system confusing, intimidating and often re-traumatising. They need a legal representative to help them navigate this system and obtain a grant of international protection so they can start to rebuild their lives. Representing children and young people in their asylum claims is complex and specialised work. It is vital that all young people can access high quality legal representation to help secure their long-term safety in the UK."

    Grace Capel, Chair of Young Roots and Barrister at Garden Court Chambers

  • Receiving a positive decision on your asylum claim should be moment of great relief – time to begin a new chapter of your life, in safety, and rebuild your future. But – because of mishandling of the asylum backlog which has meant hundreds of thousands of asylum applications have sat undecided for months and years - this moment of celebration has become a moment of crisis. It is important that the Home Office are finally making some progress on the asylum backlog but the mismanaged way of doing this (a huge backlog growing for years then making large numbers of decisions in a very short period) at the same of time as giving newly recognised refugees much less notice that they will be made homeless has created a crisis. Already underfunded homelessness services and organisations cannot cope with the sudden peak in need; refugee charities like Young Roots are working ceaselessly with an ever-growing number of young people in this situation – doing everything we can to try and prevent young refugees ending up sleeping on the streets.

    Our caseworkers are spending hours each week advocating for young refugees to prevent them being homeless.

    “If I didn’t find Young Roots, I would have ended up like a street man – I was really depressed and slept in one house after another.” - Young person

  • The disbelief of children’s age has a huge effect on them – on the systems they enter into, on the services they receive, and on their wellbeing. Children who are wrongly deemed to be adults are placed in unsafe adult asylum accommodation with strangers. They are channelled into the adult asylum system, without the extra provision which children are entitled to in this complicated and high-stakes process. They find it much harder to access education. They are not able to receive care from the local authority as children, and do not benefit from the support that care leavers receive (which leads to long-lasting negative impacts as they struggle to navigate the adult world with little support).

    Because of the enormity of the impact of age disputes, they are a key issue for Young Roots. We have expertise in this area as an organisation that supports young people through the transition of childhood to adulthood. We have vast experience in supporting children through the age dispute process – and successfully getting children recognised as the children they are.

    “I couldn’t understand why my age was not accepted. It is difficult to explain the feeling of having your identity questioned, especially as I know my mother wouldn’t have lied to me about my age. I didn’t leave my room in the hotel as I felt afraid, and I ended up feeling lonely.” - Young person