Child asylum seekers coming to Wolverhampton amid appeal for foster carers
CHILD asylum seekers from war-torn countries like Syria are on their way to Wolverhampton.
But there is a shortage of foster carers to look after the unaccompanied youngsters, the city council says.
Wolverhampton is a designated City of Sanctuary and has agreed to take five or six unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
But the majority of foster carers are white British and the council wants to match families more appropriately to the children, seeking carers from more diverse backgrounds.
Council chiefs admitted that ‘Supporting asylum seeker children up to their 18th birthday will bring a new set of challenges’.
Councillor Val Gibson, cabinet member for children and young people said: “We are looking to find the right placements at the right time, finding permanent homes as quickly as possible because of the increase in unaccompanied asylum seeker children.
“Often the majority of our foster carers in the city are white British. We therefore want to recruit more foster carers and families from more diverse ethnic backgrounds to more appropriately match these to the children requiring care.”
The number of foster carers in the city is 151. The number of so called ‘looked-after’ children was recorded as 643 as of the end of March 2017. It is not known what percentage of these were asylum seekers.
According to a council report: “Over the near future the likely increase in Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children may have an impact on the make-up of the ethnicity of the looked after children population. This in turn has implications for ensuring that there is an appropriate range of placements to meet cultural needs.”
Supporting asylum seeker children up to their 18th birthday will ‘bring a new set of challenges’ according to the report, ‘in terms of the range of ethnic backgrounds, cultures and languages which will need to be accommodated.’
Wolverhampton committed to taking in up to 100 refugees driven from countries like Syria over the next five years – but it is not known if the children in the recent arrivals are included in that figure.
That is part of a Whitehall-led initiative called Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement scheme which will see 20,000 refugees resettled in the country.
Under the scheme, the council will receive £8,520 per refugees accepted, plus £4,500 to provide education for every child aged five to 18 years. Further funding is available to the council for each refugee, starting with £5,000 for a refugee’s second year, and ending with £1,000 for the fifth year.
