The ARC project

The Asylum Seeking and Refugee Children: Developing Good Practice Project was funded by the DfES. The idea for the project came jointly from NCB's Care Planning for Children in Public Care Project and the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture, which had identified a need to look at how assessment and planning for asylum seeking children could be improved. The Medical Foundation and NCB together looked at how the idea could be progressed. The project ran from January 2005 until March 2006.

The aim of the project was to improve practice in assessment and planning for separated/unaccompanied children and young people. With the timescales of the project and given that there was already a concentration on work in age assessment within the field, the work mainly concentrated on the statutory assessment and planning processes with particular reference to planning for different outcomes and the transition at 18 years. 

ARC worked intensively with Kent County Council Asylum Seeking and Refugee Service Unit on practice development and many of the ideas behind the materials specifically developed for this website originate from the work in Kent. The project has also had the opportunity to test material in other local authorities to ensure that the materials could be applied nationally.

As well as materials developed specifically by the project, this website also brings together practice materials, research and information on projects and organisations from a range of contributors across the UK, and across different professions and disciplines, with the aim of providing a reference point for the specific issues of assessment and planning.

The materials on this website are primarily aimed at practitioners and managers within children’s services, health, education, foster carers, and residential workers. They can be adapted and used by other professionals within the statutory, voluntary and private sectors who have an interest in, or work with, asylum seeking and refugee children.

Through the ARC website the project aims to contribute to the growing body of knowledge in working with asylum seeking and refugee children.