The government has announced specialist training for 1,000 foster carers looking after unaccompanied migrant children, ahead of a key court ruling on a decision to wind up a scheme under which child refugees are brought to the UK.

The announcement comes as ministers face criticism for the UK’s failure to accept any child refugees from Greece or Italy since the Dubs scheme to help settle lone child asylum seekers was created last year. Only 200 vulnerable children have been brought to the UK under the scheme; a further 280 places offered by councils around the UK are currently unfilled.

A court case brought by the charity Help Refugees will rule on Thursday morning on the legality of a government decision not to continue with the Dubs scheme, designed to bring vulnerable refugee children in Europe to the UK. The charity launched a legal challenge in the summer on whether the government had failed to implement the Dubs amendment properly.

Robert Goodwill, minister for children and families, said: “Child refugees are some of the most vulnerable in our country and it is vital that we support them as they build safer lives, often in the care of new families. Foster carers do an incredible job, but they must have tailored support to help them deal with the complex needs of these children.”

The new training scheme for foster carers and support workers will get £200,000 in funding between 2017 and 2019, the government said. An additional £60,000 investment will provide a package of revised guidance, information and resources for councils.



Immigration minister Brandon Lewis said: “Last year almost 3,000 unaccompanied children claimed asylum in the UK and they all require ongoing care and protection.”

The government’s new safeguarding strategy on unaccompanied asylum seeking and refugee children received a qualified welcome from charities supporting refugee children. Ilona Pinter, from the Children’s Society, said it was a constructive move, but that she was worried that the “government has not committed to reviewing access to legal aid for unaccompanied children’s immigration applications to remain in the UK”.

These issues, as well as post-Brexit arrangements for child refugees, will be debated in parliament later on Thursday.



Around 200 migrant children hoping to travel to the UK are currently sleeping rough in Calais and nearby port towns. Roughly a third are believed to have family in the UK. The French government this week opened a temporary centre for unaccompanied child refugees in the town, a year after the informal camp that housed 10,000 migrants by the French port was demolished, according to the British charity Safe Passage, which campaigns for safe legal routes for refugees seeking protection.

Run by the French children’s charity France Terre d’Asile, the centre will offer around 20 places and is expected to be temporary, according to Safe Passage’s French-based staff. No official announcement has been made about the centre’s opening, although it is understood to have allowed some children in on Monday.

The centre is designed to accommodate young people hoping to be reunited with family in the UK and those deemed eligible to come to the UK under the Dubs scheme, the charity said. The decision to open the centre is a significant move, given the reluctance of French authorities to create any kind of centre that might attract more migrants to the port.

It will mean that those young people housed there will no longer have to sleep in the bushes around the port. Since the camp’s demolition last year, local police have routinely removed tents and any semi-permanent structures from the woods on the town’s outskirts, leaving migrants to live in the open, with no access to sanitation, tents, showers or food.

Alf Dubs, who arrived as a child in the UK as a kindertransport refugee and who persuaded the government to set up the scheme for unaccompanied child refugees (which was originally designed to help up to 3,000 children), said: “The development of a centre near Calais is welcome, but it must be permanent and provide legal support to children trying to access safe and legal routes to Britain.



“We must put an end to desperate children jumping on lorries, risking their lives and others as they seek to reach their loved ones – as is their legal right.”