They Made Me Feel Like Myself: A joint report into age assessment practices and their impact on young people by Young Roots and Helen Bamber Foundation.

The Helen Bamber Foundation and Young Roots, has published a new report on age assessment. The report examines the hub model employed by Young Roots, highlighting effective practices within this framework that minimize harm to children and offer additional evidence during the age assessment process.

To read the full report, please click here

Background?

Young Roots is a London based charity supporting young people and refugees aged between 11 and 25. They provide practical and emotional support and advocacy through one to one case work as well as having a youth development programme to reduce isolation and support wellbeing.

The Helen Bamber Foundation is a specialist clinical and human rights charity that works with survivors of trafficking, torture and other forms of extreme cruelty. Their services include specialist therapeutic care, housing and welfare advice as well as integration activities and services.

Impact of age assessment

Young Roots have used their settings to allow young people with a forum to explore the impact different ‘stressors’ (including age disputes) had on their mental health. Through this work they found;

• Age disputes can trigger high levels of stress, confusion and uncertainty.
• Age disputes affect young people’s trust towards professionals and the overall systems in which they find themselves in.
• This in turn can impact upon young people’s ability to engage in the support systems available to them.
• Age assessment interviews can activate painful memories and can be re-traumatising and risk maintaining or exacerbating pre-existing psychological vulnerabilities or difficulties.
• In extreme cases, these age assessment interviews can contribute to the development of severe mental health difficulties.
• Worry and pre-occupation about the outcome of an age dispute, (as well as the insecurities of withholding support) can interfere with young people’s abilities to meaningfully engage with psychological treatment.
• Due to the challenges and circumstances surrounding their migration journey, young people require consistent and reliable support to successfully navigate and recover from their past experiences, however, the nature of age disputes can impact upon (and significantly damage) the relationships that young people have with their social workers reinforcing the difficulties young people have with trust, attachment and interpersonal relationships.

What works well about the Hub Model?

• The accessibility – within a few weeks of accessing the hub, overseen by the case workers, young people can be supported to access a range of practical and emotional support systems including health services, legal representation, psychological support and social activities.
• Consistent engagement – appointments for all services take place in an environment which young people know to be safe, fun and supportive.
• De-stigmatising – Young people can access psychological input at the Hub’ when they are accessing legal advice and socialising with their peers. They do not have to travel to a specialist location to access this.
• Holistic age assessment – Professionals can consider young people’s presentation in a variety of different settings. They observe interactions between the age disputed young person with peers of a variety of different ages and completing a variety of different tasks. Overall, this allows a more comprehensive observation of emotional wellbeing, personality, maturity and cognitive ability which can all influence in the assessment of age.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The report makes the following conclusions and recommendations in respect of age assessing young people.

• Holistic long-term support for young people who are age dispute allows them to better demonstrate their age.
• Independent professionals working with young people can provide good insights concerning young people and should be considered within the age assessment process.

Key consideration points for social work practice

Here at ISWS we think, this report provides six clear consideration points for our practice in completing age assessments.

1. Timing – There will be some clients where it is immediately obvious that an urgent age assessment is required, but for others, there may be less urgency.

It is crucial for the age assessment to be conducted after the client has had a chance to rest and recover and this may take longer for some clients than others. In addition, allowing a client of period of time to begin to form relationships with professionals, will provide social workers with more in depth evidence and observations that we can draw on within the assessment process.

2. Does this age assessment need to take place? – Prior to a client having their age disputes, a clear reflection needs to take place about if an age assessment is needed. This needs to consider what evidence there is to dispute a young person’s age and whether there are alternative reasons for this evidence such as past trauma, current mental health concerns or social isolation.

This decision needs to be recorded as a management decision on the local authority recording system.

3. Professional feedback – As part of the preparation for completing an age assessment, all the professionals working with a client should be contacted to gather a holistic view of the client. This should include agencies who are supporting clients outside of the ‘statutory sector’.

This feedback should be recorded within your age assessment report, including your weighting. We recommend this is captured within an evidence table. 

4. Prior to the age assessment interviews– In your preparation for the age assessment, consideration needs to be given to the support which can be offered to the client prior to the age assessment.

This could include additional key worker or allocated social worker visits, as well as ensuring that the client has access to social and community-based activities to keep them busy.

5. During the age assessment interviews – The interviews completed need to be trauma informed and considerate in their approach. The interviews completed need to be thorough to ensure that you can complete a chronological assessment, however, should avoid activities that can be re-traumatising and distressing.

We recommend using ice breaker activities, topic cards and social work tools such as genograms and timelines to limit the formality of the process. A robust and appropriately trained appropriate adult is key in supporting the client during the age assessment interviews, as are ensuring the interview is formatted to include breaks and time for religious observations.

6. After the age assessment interviews – Regardless of the approach taken, age assessment interviews are likely to be challenging and stressful for clients. Therefore, appropriate planning needs to take place for afterwards.

Consideration needs to be given in advance to additional support being offered by professionals working with the client, directly after and in the time between interviews. Following the final interview, a clear timeframe needs to be in place, for the client to receive the outcome of the assessment and avoid ‘drift’.

If you’ve found this useful you might want to think about coming on our age assessment training – further details can be found here.

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