Last summer Coram Children’s Legal Centre gave a very helpful presentation on the EU Settlement Scheme to members of NIROMP’s London IROs Group. The presentation covered what Social Workers and IROs needed to do with children and young people in local authority care to apply for settled status post-Brexit. Government funding for Coram and other agencies to assist such applications was only due to run until March 2020.
Update from Anita Hurrell, head of the Migrant Children’s Project at coram’s Chidlren’s Legal Centre
The important news is that help will still be available.
In the event there is no funding beyond March the Migrant Children’s Project will still run their advice line (email mcpadvice@coramclc.org.uk) and will be able to answer answer EUSS queries that way.
For all children up to 18 who are looked-after, legal aid is now available for EUSS and all nationality following the legal aid policy change in October 2019. So referrals to legal aid solicitors can be made for example:
- Where a child is applying for British citizenship
- Where a child has criminal convictions and their EUSS case might be complex
- Where a child has a complex EUSS application e.g. they are not an EU national themselves
- Where a child is disabled and will need a lot of support to apply to the EUSS.
In theory, all looked-after children’s EUSS cases are legally aidable but for very simple EUSS applications it might be a struggle to find legal aid solicitors who will take the cases on.
Further information available at: www.childrenslegalcentre.com
Information is also available via the Children’s Commissioner: EU children in Britain Know your rights to stay in Britain
niromp.org 