Young people granted entry to join relatives under the Dublin III agreement - Practice Guidance April 2017
1. Background
This document provides practice guidance for working with young people granted entry to join relatives under the Dublin III agreement. Please note these young people are NOT Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) and should not be recorded as such on Frameworki / Mosaic. Refer to the Dublin III Workflow – March 2017.
2. Referrals
The Home Office will confirm the relationship with the carer prior to the UK accepting responsibility for the young person.
It is anticipated that referrals will come into the Front Door Safeguarding Hub from the Home Office. The referral will identify the young person as well as the relative already living in Leeds who is understood to be available and wishing to care for young person.
Duty and Advice Team will pick up the referral and create the contact. They will assign the referral to the relevant cluster social work teams based upon the relative’s address.
The young person is not yet in the UK.
3. Viability Assessments
Although the relationship with the relative has been confirmed by the Home Office, in order to be able to release the child to the relative on their arrival in the UK , the social worker must establish and confirm urgently whether there are any reasons why this would be inappropriate in the immediate term (whilst conducting any further assessment considered appropriate).
The Dublin III Carer Viability Assessment template is used to carry out this assessment. The Children’s Service Delivery Manager should have sight of the completed viability assessment prior to confirmation of suitability to Home Office. Confirmation of suitability is communicated to the Home office by email, it is not necessary to send assessment but this should be uploaded to the child’s record on Frameworki.
If the outcome is that it is not suitable for the young person to be released into the care of the relative. This needs to be clearly communicated to the Home Office. They will make a decision whether the young person should come to the UK or not. If it is decided that they should come here, they young person will become a UASC and potentially come to Leeds.
If it is decided that it is suitable, this is communicated as above to the Home Office. Arrangements are made to bring the young person to the UK and for them to move in with their relative.
4. Travel arrangements and handover requirements
The Home Office will arrange for the young person to come to the UK.
It is the expectation is that the Social Worker or the child’s relative (if approved) will make necessary travel arrangements to collect and transport the child or young person back to the relevant Local Authority upon their arrival in the UK.
Leeds will support relatives wishing to travel to collect young person and cover return train travel plus single ticket for young person if necessary. A contribution toward fuel costs may also be considered.
If assistance with transport arrangements is required then this should be added in the ‘any other comments’ box of Section 2 of the Local Authority Checklist Form that is sent to us when the Home Office make the referral and is returned to them. If it is likely that the young person will arrive outside usual office hours then Children’s Emergency Duty Team (EDT) can assist to facilitate ‘handover’. For more information, refer to Dublin III Out of Hours Guidance.
If the assessment of the relative indicated that assistance is required for immediate sleeping arrangements for young person (many relatives seem to be older brothers who are typically living in a room in a shared house) the Leeds will provide airbed (or similar) plus set of bedding (pillow and duvet) and two sets bed linen (sheet, pillow slip duvet cover). This will be pending more suitable accommodation being progressed – see section on housing below.
5. 10 day Child and Family Assessment
Once young person has arrived in Leeds a 10 day Child and Family Assessment should be undertaken to ascertain the suitability of the arrangements and identify any support needs:
i. Education
ii. Health
iii. Financial
iv. Legal
v. Housing
vi. Social
i. Education: if the young person is under 16 years old, a school place should be requested by the relative completing an In Year Common Preference Form (ICPF). If the young person is over 16, a referral to IGEN or Leeds City College for ESOL classes should be made. Pending allocation of an education place, day support may be required if the relative offering care is in employment.
ii. Health: young people need to be registered with a GP and a Dentist. Many, if not all will have experienced trauma. Whilst their primary source of emotional support will be their relative, they themselves are likely to have had similar experiences which brings potential vulnerabilities in terms of emotional wellbeing of both. The Social Worker needs to provide a confirmation letter to assist with GP and Dentist registration. The Dublin III GP and Dentist Letter identifies that it is likely the young person will require a full set of immunisations.
iii. Financial: it will be important to ensure the relative is directed to a source of welfare benefits advice. Advice on welfare benefits can be obtained from Welfare Rights. The easiest way would be by ringing 0113 3760452. This is a public number and can be given to the public. The customer can ring welfare rights from the one stop centre if they need access to a phone. Face to face appointments can be booked to see a welfare rights advisor at most one stop centres, the appointment can be booked by either contacting welfare rights or calling in at a one stop centre, but note these appointments are busy and there can be a two to three week wait for an appointment which is why a telephone enquiry is normally quicker.
If the young person is being placed with another adult then it is the status of the adult making the claim that is important for benefits rather than the status of the young person. The young person will need some proof of ID, but in the absence of a passport, Home Office documentation should be sufficient. The presence of the young person may lead to entitlement to Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit and possibly increase the rate of Housing Benefit because of the need for an extra bedroom, but this is on the understanding that the responsible adult has access to public funds and can claim benefit.
It may be that interim payments from Section 17 Children Act 1989 will be required until benefit claims are progressed. If this is so the current National Asylum Support Service (NASS) rates are to be used at the Section 95 rate of £36.95 (correct as of March 2017). An initial clothing grant may be required for the young person and if this is the case a grant of £200 may be made (correct as of March 2017).
iv. Legal: two scenarios are likely, firstly, the young person has been granted leave to remain either for five years or in line with their family member’s immigration status. Secondly, the young person may arrive with no status and need to start the asylum process. See the Asylum Process for Asylum Seeking Children.
Their application will usually be decided within six months. The young person will need to access their own legal advice if required. The family member will be assessed by the solicitor in order to determine the child’s eligibility to legal aid. The family member will need to attend the first appointment and provide evidence of income. The Local Authority need to provide the relative with a letter confirming our support and including details of s17 financial support. To do this, use the Dublin III Solicitors Letter. There is a list of legal aid solicitors – Immigration Solicitors.
v. Housing: as above many of the relatives are living in rooms in shared housing supported by Housing Benefit. In many situations they propose to move to a property where a second bedroom will be available for the young person.
It is suggested they be directed to Refugee Housing Team at Housing Options. tel: 0113 3950113 and email: who will assist in securing a two bedroom private rented tenancy or to bid for local authority property. Enquiries may be made regarding housing benefit entitlement using
vi. Social support: a referral may be made to the Children’s Society for young people to attend weekly asylum and refugee youth group, email:
Following completion of the 10 day assessment and it is decided that the arrangement is suitable, we anticipate further support should be offered through a child in need plan and this may need to be for three months to ensure all actions taken.
6. If it is decided that the arrangement is not suitable
Through assessment, when Leeds is unable to confirm the relative’s suitability then the advice from the Home Office is clear. If we are unable to place the minor with the relative on their arrival we will need to release the minor into your local authority care.
This would mean the young person would need to be considered as an Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Child (UASC) and as such, be looked after with Section 20 status.
Immediate placement arrangements appropriate to child looked after status will need to be identified e.g. foster care if under 16 years. If they are over 16, this could be through supported lodgings, renting a room or living in shared housing.
On completion of the 10 day Child and Family Assessment, if placement with the relative has not been achieved, case management responsibility will transfer to the 13+ Looked after Children teams through the existing UASC new arrival rota.
The 13+ looked after team Social Worker should consider if an age assessment should be carried out with the young person.
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