In Kent, we talk to young refugees about the problems they face in the UK after fleeing traumatic lives, and to the charities trying to support them

On the upper floor of a redbrick townhouse that has seen smarter days, in a room overheating as a result of too many bodies in too small a space, 29 teenagers have turned up for an evening class on human rights.

The room is big enough to hold 12 people, said the Red Cross project leader, Robert Lloyd. But he has seen the numbers coming to the makeshift advice centre for young refugees in Gravesend, Kent, double in the past few weeks. Lloyd, the only staff member, works with five volunteers. They were supposed to be supporting 65 young people here, but so far the number is 165 and rising.

Aged from 13 to 18, the boys and girls who come here are from Somalia, Eritrea, Albania, Afghanistan, Sudan and Iran. What they have in common is that they arrived in the UK on their own, looking for asylum from traumatic lives.

As the local authority where the children first arrive – usually through Dover – Kent county council has a legal requirement to look after them. Kent has no more foster placements available and is short of social workers. Recruitment drives for both are ongoing, but in the meantime the private sector is filling the gaps, often at double the cost.

As of Friday, Kent bore responsibility for 720 such children, with more expected yesterday and a funding shortfall of £6.5m, said its council’s head of children’s services, Peter Oakford. He points out that many local authorities across England, further from the coast, don’t have any such young refugees.

“Costs are rising all the time. We have used up every foster carer we have, this is the reason we are trying to rattle the government’s cage. Because these are children who have come here alone and scared; some of the stories I’ve heard are horrific,” he said.

In Gravesend, it’s a typical classroom scene: some teens are chattering among themselves, others sitting too shy to contribute and a few are fiddling with their mobile phones. A 17-year-old from Iran is asking Lloyd how he can reach his social worker, who has not returned his calls for two weeks. He has been moved out of foster care into lodgings which are two hours from his school and is desperate to try to find another foster family. His 14-year-old brother is in another town. “Family is good, the lodging house is not so good,” he says. Several of the children here say they do not have a college or school place.

Rosalind Compton, a solicitor from the Coram Children’s Centre, has come from London to give a talk to the young people on their legal rights, and on what the various statuses they might be assigned signify. Often a child can fail to be awarded asylum when they turn 18 through a simple failure to fill out the correct form or make the right application during a small window of time. “The system is simply Byzantine, complex for an adult to comphrehend never mind a young person,” she said.

Afterwards the teenagers are split into two groups. They are challenged to invent a new country and come up with some rules. One group calls their nation “Friendly”. The other elects a leader and calls their country Gillingham. The new president of Gillingham, Simon, 17, stands up to present what his group have decided the nation will be like. Simon comes from Eritrea, and did his time in the infamous “jungle” in Calais. “Everyone will have a bedroom for sleeping,” he says. “And freedom. You know freedom? Democracy. Everyone will have this, too. We are a welcoming place, no killing, no hate here.”

According to research by the University of Brighton out this weekend, unaccompanied child asylum seekers face a “hostile and interrogatory” reception when they arrive, facing “confusing and repetitive” questioning by immigration officers who do not ensure appropriate adults are present. Freedom of Information research showed just seven out of 150 local authorities in England look after 43% of all unaccompanied asylum seeking children in the country, overloading social workers, who have less time to spend with each child.

“The pressure is such that even the most committed social worker is going to be dropping balls all over the place,” said Jo Wilding, co-author with Professor Marie-Bénédicte Dembour of the research, which concluded that Britain’s asylum process was “contrary to the child’s best interests”.

“The long waits for education, then having to travel long distances to schools and lodgings, children going missing and no one looking for them. Kent has seen a 33% cut to its funding in real terms. It’s bleak,” she said.

Lisa Doyle, the Refugee Council’s head of advocacy, said: “Globally, more children have been forced to flee their homes alone than at any other time since records began. A small proportion of these children have sought safety in Britain, arriving alone and scared. Of course, it’s right that these children are looked after in the same way we care for other children who can’t live in peace with their families,” she said.

“It’s vital the government works with local authorities to ensure they are properly resourced in order to offer these vulnerable children the accommodation and care they need, and the public have a role to play, too, in welcoming these young people into their communities: it would be brilliant to see the recent public outpouring of support for refugees help to alleviate the lack of foster placements available to young people.”

But in Kent there are tensions. Oakford reports that he has been “called everything but a Christian” from constituents angry at the duties Kent council is trying to fulfill. “It’s been very, very mixed,” he said, “but we have to make people understand that we have a legal duty, not just the moral one. And wars are still raging, so until governments do something about that, people will still need refuge and safety.”

A new reception centre for up to 12 young refugees which opened last week in Whitstable caused concern among some parents.

“There were a few who were very vocal, but really a lot of that is down to not knowing who was coming and what to expect,” said the Rev Steve Coneys of the Seasalter Church in the town, who is helping at the centre. “What we really need is some kind of place where people can sit down together and discuss their fears, and have them allayed.”

As the teenagers prepare to head back through the night to their far-flung lodgings, with most having bus journeys of more than an hour, 15-year-old Awate tells me what he likes about the real-life Kent. “I like the weather, I like the cold,” he grins. “I like the football and I like the freedom of speech, it’s nice.”

He came to the UK in the back of a lorry through Calais, 10 months after fleeing Eritrea when his parents were taken to prison for their religious beliefs. “I was in prison for two weeks too, because I am Christian, but when they let me out I ran. I was in the Calais jungle for one week; I ate just one day and I was scared. I had teargas in my face four times and I tried five times to get under lorries but the dogs kept catching me. Most of the people I meet here are here for the same reason, because of their government, not because of themselves. They – we – are without power.”