Calais 'Jungle': Shortage of foster families to take refugee children

The Jungle camp has been razed to the ground
PA
Kate Proctor2 November 2016
WEST END FINAL

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There is a severe shortage of foster families needed to cope with the number of children coming to the UK from the Jungle camp in Calais, a shadow minister said today.

Hundreds of youngsters have arrived in the UK from France so far this autumn after the camp was cleared and demolished. Yet homes for the new arrivals will not be possible without a huge recruitment drive for foster- carers, the Government has admitted, and Labour is concerned plans for the children will flounder.

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said there is already a national shortage of foster families and despite an advertisement campaign it is a constant struggle to find more.

She added: “I am worried that the Government will not succeed in getting even more to look after especially vulnerable refugee children.”

The Government say they will have a strategy in place in six months’ time to cope with the number of children needing state-funded foster placements.

Local authorities are understood to be bracing themselves for even more demand on services when some of the children coming to the UK under the Dublin regulations are unable to live with family members because their accommodation is unsuitable.

Children and Families Minister Edward Timpson said: “We recognise that the number of unaccompanied and refugee children arriving in the UK has risen over the last few years, including through the transfer of hundreds of children from Calais. Some of these children can be amongst the most vulnerable in society. That is why we are, today, committing to publishing a strategy, by May 1, 2017, which will set out further detail on how these children should be safeguarded and their welfare promoted.”

Plans include increasing the number of foster placements across the country and providing more supported lodgings so young people can live together.

But Ms Rayner said the strategy has arrived far too late to deal with children who have most recently arrived from Calais. She claimed: “The Government appear to have been caught by surprise by the refugee crisis and are only now coming forward with a strategy which is itself already too late and which won’t be implemented for at least six months.

“I am really worried that these refugee children, who have already experienced worse than most adults will ever see, are simply not going to get the care, support and proper funding they will need.”

Barnardo’s chief executive Javed Khan welcomed the Government’s commitment to finding foster homes for unaccompanied children but said funding and training were vital.

France began its own effort to find homes for unaccompanied minors from the Jungle with three busloads of boys, mainly teenagers, being taken to processing centres throughout the country.@KateProctorES

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