Unaccompanied child asylum housing

This IMB report for Short Term Holding Facilities at London Heathrow, London City Airports, and Becket and Eaton House Reporting Centres (Feb 2019-Jan 2020) highlights concerns about the suitability of accommodation for longer stays and children, and overcrowding due to transport delays. Key issues include detainee access to medication and legal advice, the quality of DCO inductions and engagement, and challenges in Board monitoring of removals. While positive developments were noted in some areas, several critical recommendations from previous years remain unaddressed.

Processes for dealing with unaccompanied minors arriving should be urgently reviewed to address the lengths of time spent waiting in the holding rooms or the Atrium before being placed in care.

Unaccompanied minors are not always allocated a responsible adult when they are in the CWA. We would like each minor to be accompanied by a responsible adult.

We recommend that children should be rested before being interviewed and that BF/HOIE does not carry out welfare interviews with children at KIU in the middle of the night. In addition, sleep mats should be provided for those who have to spend the night at WJF.

The Board has been informed that unaccompanied children should not go through an initial age decision interview during night hours, unless in exceptional circumstances. This results in some individuals resting on wooden benches overnight. The Board has requested, for several months, that mats should be provided for them to sleep on. The Board has also requested that the advice given …

Supervision of detainees in the holding rooms should be improved during times when the holding rooms are close to full capacity in particular to safeguard the needs of children detainees who are vulnerable.

Age assessment processes should be strengthened to prevent further cases of minors being mistakenly transported to Immigration Removal Centres. This has been partially addressed since the end of the reporting period.

The Board repeats its recommendation that the Home Office should substantially improve the facilities for families and children in Terminal 5. These are currently excessively cramped and they lack integrated toilet, shower and baby-changing facilities.

We would like to see shorter collection waiting times for those seeking asylum and being transferred to asylum accommodation.

The Board recommends that the Home Office considers strengthening the relationship between Border Force and Children’s Services. The Board notes there is no service level agreement between BF and Children’s Services, resulting in some unaccompanied children waiting for 16 or 17 hours for support, as noted in 7.4.

Training should be strengthened for frontline staff, especially in Tinsley House, to help ensure that potentially under-age individuals are identified and feel able to challenge the age imputed to them (section 4.4.3).

[London Heathrow Airport] The Detention Contractor should arrange for a DCO or other responsible adult to sit in the family holding room with a young or otherwise vulnerable unaccompanied child (para. 6.6).

With the closure of YOI Cookham Wood, the Board believes it is inhumane that about a quarter of young people, who are legally recognised as children, are accommodated at Werrington from the other end of the country, far away from family? How does the Minister intend to address this serious issue?

Ministers should end unwarranted variation and bring immigration detention facilities up to the minimum standards they require of the police. For example, police custody rules prohibit under-18s from mixing with unrelated adults, yet in facilities such as Edinburgh children may have to pass through rooms with unrelated adults to reach the toilet. How does the Minister propose to address this …

We ask the minister to investigate, with the Home Office, why a prisoner who has served his prison sentence appears to be being held indefinitely in HMP/YOI Winchester under IS91? Why are foreign nationals issued with complicated asylum applications written in a language they do not speak (see section 4.4)?

The Board is concerned about the gaps in the care of vulnerable foreign national prisoners at risk of deportation and about the lack of clarity regarding ownership of responsibility on release (7.5).

We would like to see shorter collection waiting times for those seeking asylum and being transferred to asylum accommodation.

The Board is concerned about the growing number of YP who are being transferred to Wetherby main site from STCs and YOIs, at some considerable distance from their home. Thirty-five such YP arrived in a five-month period. This seems to be contrary to best practice. It is well documented that outcomes for YP are improved when they are able to …

In the light of the issues and inequalities we have highlighted in this report, to reconsider the suitability of Derwentside as an IRC.