By Dr. Ana Draper

In July 2016, A Parliamentary Select Committee report entitled Children in Crisis: Unaccompanied Migrant Children in the EU makes the statement: ‘All we can know for certainty is that the number of unaccompanied children in the EU runs to many tens of thousands and has grown significantly in recent years’. From this uncertainty a very specific figure of 3,043 asylum applications from unaccompanied minors were made in the UK, an increase of 56% from 2014. Most of these children have arrived in Kent and passed through reception centres in the county before being rapidly dispersed either into foster care or supported living arrangements. It is from the experience of working therapeutically with these children that the recommendations in this paper are being made.