#section17

[mollies-mad-moments]

I’m speechless.

When I wasn’t taking my medication the nurses were all saying things like “your meds are really important, you must take them consistently as prescribed” etc…then this happens.

Ugh.

@mollies-mad-moments

[annawanderer]

Trying pepperoni pizza.....big portion ..OMG !!!! #pepporonipizza #pizzamansion #section17 #happymansionpj #happymansionsec17 #pizza #yum （在 Pizza Mansion） https://www.instagram.com/p/B1AouPaJyVmAvH1P2SO6ruw0KcGQnZviYPWUXs0/?igshid=wpaw8817b5wu

[whatdoesnorecoursemean]

Not seen, not heard.pdf

Not Seen, Not Heard: Children’s experiences of the hostile environment

Not Seen, Not Heard: Children’s experiences of the hostile environment

A report by Project 17 published in February 2019

This report details the ways in which the Section 17 provision is being increasingly gatekept from families with no recourse to public funds (NRPF) who are facing destitution and homelessness. The report evidences that when Section 17 support is offered to families it is done so at a highly inadequate level, and that the process of getting this support is harmful to the vulnerable children who the council have a duty to protect.

‘Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children ‘in need’ in their area. This statutory provision has become an essential safety net for children whose parents are unable to access mainstream welfare support because of their (NRPF) immigration status.’ (Page 2)

The report focusses on the experiences of children whose families have needed Section 17 support. Their testimony provides a powerful insight into the hardship that children from families with NRPF face, and how their physical and emotional wellbeing are being harmed by NRPF, and by the treatment that they receive from local authorities.

Below the children’s testimony you will find the report’s recommendations which are printed on pages 4-6.

Recommendations:

Local authorities

Assessments should be child-focused, fair, and transparent. They should be conducted by social workers, in line with statutory guidance. Children’s views, wishes, and feelings should be solicited and given due regard in decision-making. In line with Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the best interests of children should be the primary concern when staff are making decisions that may affect children.

Local authorities should be sensitive to the vulnerabilities of families approaching them for support and give parents ample opportunities to provide an explanation for inconsistencies or gaps in information. Local authority staff should treat families with dignity and respect.

Immigration and fraud officers should not be part of Child in Need assessments. They act as a deterrent to vulnerable families and therefore put children at greater risk of destitution.

NRPF Network Practice Guidance should be adopted by local authorities to ensure they are carrying out consistent, lawful assessments and making decisions in accordance with best practice.

Starting rates for financial support provided to families with NRPF under section 17 should never be lower than rates provided to destitute asylum-seeking families under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Financial support should be provided to the family as a whole and should be sufficient to meet the family’s needs. Information about how rates of financial support have been calculated should be accessible to families and social workers should make sure that families feel confident to raise issues about subsistence.

Local authorities should carry out checks on accommodation provided before families are moved into properties. Accommodation provided should be suitable for families and consideration should be given to the need for privacy, the location of a child’s school and their community, the behavior of other residents, and access to basic facilities. Social workers should make sure that children have adequate privacy, space for homework, and feel safe in the accommodation.

Central Government

The Home Office should not apply the NRPF condition to individuals granted leave to remain on human rights grounds.

Local authorities should be sufficiently funded by central government to meet their duties under section 17.

Central government should consult and provide statutory guidance on the provision of accommodation under section 17.

Changes should be made to The Education Act 1996 to ensure children in families with NRPF are entitled to free school meals.

The government’s 30 hours free childcare scheme should be made available to families with NRPF.

Legal aid should be reinstated for individuals applying for leave to remain on the basis of family or private life.

Immigration application fees for leave to remain on the basis of family or private life should be scrapped.

Project 17

To explore how we can be more effective at seeing and hearing the children and young people we work with.

Identifying further partnerships and funding opportunities to build on this work.

Developing a charter for local authorities to consider how they will work towards a child-friendly environment for families with no recourse to public funds.

[whatdoesnorecoursemean]

Case study of how a sudden change in circumstances became dangerous due to a family having NRPF

The case study that follows shows how a sudden change in circumstances led to a family becoming homeless, and how having no recourse to public funds (NRPF) made their experience all the more difficult. It was provided by The Unity Project, the charity that helped ‘Annie’ to make a * Change of Conditions application. 

* Although the Change of Conditions application may look simple, the refusals given by the Home Office demonstrate how much evidence is expected, and how difficult it is to make without the support of an experienced caseworker.

Please note, ‘Annie’ is a fake name used to protect the person’s privacy. The social services teams that are mentioned in this case are in London.

Annie’s experience:

At the time of the incident that led to an extreme change in Annie’s circumstances, she had leave to remain with no recourse to public funds (NRPF). She was living with her now ex-partner, and her 2 children. Her ex-partner is the father of her youngest child.

In early 2018, after taking her children to school, Annie came home to find that she had been locked out by her ex-partner without any warning. She went to the police and was told that as she was not on the tenancy agreement her ex-partner had the right to do this. The police took Annie to her local council’s social services so that emergency accommodation could be arranged for her and her children.

Social services were incredibly hostile. Annie was shouted at and told to ‘go back home’ (meaning country of origin) and section 17 support was refused. The reason given was because Annie had ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NPRF) - NRPF is a condition whereby a person is unable to access many welfare benefits. Annie was told that she was lucky to have been accommodated by her ex-partner and advised to look for work - which Annie had already been doing extensively.

Annie’s children’s school agreed to look after her children until 6pm so that she could try to arrange somewhere for the family to sleep that night. At 6pm she still hadn’t found anywhere and had to pick up her children. They walked around their town centre in the rain until a friend agreed to accommodate them later that evening. None of the family were in sufficiently warm clothing and Annie has been locked out without a buggy so had to carry her youngest child. Annie’s youngest child was very ill due to a respiratory condition.

The friend who accommodated the family only agreed to allow them to stay if they left the house early in the morning when she went to work. This meant that Annie sat in a church all day with her youngest child whilst her friend was at work. Annie found a pram that someone had thrown away to use. At this time she could only afford biscuits and juice to sustain her children.

After 2 days a different friend who lived in a different local authority agreed to accommodate the family. This friend was living in a 2 bedroom flat with her partner and 4 children. When Annie moved in the number of people in this flat increased to 9.

Throughout this time the social services team were still refusing to accommodate the family, but were going to Annie’s eldest child’s school to interview her without warning. Both mother and child found this confusing and distressing. Social services contacted both fathers of Annie’s children, and suggested that she leave her children with the ex-partner who had locked them out a few days earlier. Annie was shocked as this was both not possible, and not in the best interests of her children.

Social services visited the second accommodation that Annie was staying at on 3 occasions without warning. They pressurized Annie’s friend to accommodate the family for 48 days. Annie was repeatedly advised to make a Change of Conditions application, but no support was offered to help the family make this application, or to accommodate them whilst it was being made. The family who were hosting were made so uncomfortable by their treatment by social services that they wanted Annie and her family to leave as soon as possible,

Haringey Migrant Support Centre (HMSC) had been supporting Annie throughout this time. Their solicitor approached the different local authority of where Annie had moved to for section 17 support.  This social services team was very helpful and accommodated the family. Annie would not have known that she could ask the second council for support without the help offered by HMSC. This second and supportive social services team also referred the family to an early intervention officer due to their concern about her eldest child witnessing domestic violence.

HMSC also referred Annie to The Unity Project for help to make the Change of Conditions application to remove the NRPF condition from her visa, and arranged a clothing donation and access to food banks for the family.

Annie suffers from extreme back pain and the cost of childcare were barriers to her finding employment that she was able to maintain. If Annie’s application for recourse to public funds was refused and she was denied access to section 17 support she may have found herself with no other option than to try to return her abusive ex-partner.

Annie has a diploma in social work and has studied law. She knew that it was wrong that the first council were making their decision to withhold section 17 support based on her situation and not the needs of her children. Despite this she felt unable to challenge the council successfully on her own. Annie explained that if she had not been advised to ask the second council for help she would think that social services is a lie - not set up to help people, but existing to do the opposite.

[whatdoesnorecoursemean]

Home Office staff sit in on council interviews with migrant families

Critics say practice risks deterring destitute families from accessing support

Homeless and destitute families with no recourse to public funds (NRPF) are able to access Section 17 support, as councils have a duty of care towards vulnerable children in need.

This article shares how having immigration officers embedded in councils has been used to deter people from accessing the Section 17 support they need. 

Quotes from article:

“Local authorities have a clear obligation to safeguard the welfare of children. That support is a right, and we are concerned that families are afraid to access that right because of data-sharing with the Home Office,” said Jennifer Ang, a human rights lawyer at JustRight Scotland...

Bethan Lant, head of casework at Praxis, said social workers who requested Home Office support in these assessments regularly threatened to separate families.

In a recording heard by the Guardian, a social worker tells an applicant with leave to remain that the Home Office worker present at the interview could deport her, in front of her daughter. “The impression being given by officers is that if you need help you have to consider going back home, which is absolutely not the case,” Lant said.

One Nigerian claimant told the Guardian that an immigration officer criticised her for sending her children to live with a family member while she was depressed. “They said: ‘Why would you abandon your kids? What kind of mother would do that?’ They made me feel like a criminal.

Campaigners say the practice of embedding immigration officers in local councils is harming vulnerable children. Chai Patel, legal policy director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: “Section 17 support is designed to ensure that children and their families are not left destitute, homeless or starving. For the Home Office to use it to gather personal data on those families for immigration enforcement purposes is a gross perversion of the purpose of the law.”

Amy Murtagh, the interim director of Project 17, said: “Our research has shown that the perceived threat of possible detention or deportation deters families from accessing support. As a result children are being left homeless, in situations of dire poverty or at risk of exploitation.”

[whatdoesnorecoursemean]

“A mother and two young kids have been refused support & left street homeless by @lb_southwark's NRPF team tonight. The family & one of our volunteers spent the whole day trying to get support only to be told 10 mins before the office closed that none would be provided.”

https://twitter.com/NELMAcampaigns/status/1041748204230983680

Twitter thread posted by NELMA (North East London Migrant Action) on 17/09/18:

A mother and two young kids have been refused support & left street homeless by @lb_southwark's NRPF team tonight. The family & one of our volunteers spent the whole day trying to get support only to be told 10 mins before the office closed that none would be provided.

Decision made by @alexirvine77. We've seen Southwark's gatekeeping of s17 support from families with NRPF get worse and more hostile. These decisions to leave children street homeless are shameful. @peterjohn6 @helenhayes_

@lb_southwark has made it very clear that children living in families with no recourse to public funds do not matter to them. Rather than upholding their statutory duty to safeguard children in their area, they are failing some of the most vulnerable children in Southwark.

In the past we've seen @lb_southwark refuse support & wear a mother down so much so that she felt forced to enter into sex work.

[whatdoesnorecoursemean]

No Recourse to Public Funds: Olivia's story

Olivia Ndoti from the Women's Asylum Support Housing (WASH) project, came to Glasgow Caledonian University to talk to social work students about having No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF).

Olivia shares her first-hand experiences of being in the immigration system and its intersection with 'NRPF' and social work, as she struggled to receive the support that she and her child were entitled to. 

Olivia’s story is shared here: https://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/case-studies/no-recourse-public-funds-olivias-story

On 20 November 2017, social work students at Glasgow Caledonian University took part in a session that formed part of their Working with Law and Ethics module. It was entitled, No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF): Supporting Individuals and Understanding their Rights. Its primary focus was on children and families.

The morning provided input from a human rights lawyer, Jen Ang from JustRight Scotland, and Natalia Farmer, a PhD student completing ethnographic research on this topic. Both brought case study material into the session. Critically, however, the session also contained Olivia's story.

Information about why the course is making space for lived experience in their modules is shared here https://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/case-studies/bringing-law-life-lived-experience

[whatdoesnorecoursemean]

NRPF leaves parent unable to return to work

Case study from ‘Making Change Happen: The impact of national policies on our clients’ lives… A report by Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network (LRMN)’, published March 2018

'Miremba* is a 31 year old woman from Uganda*. Miremba has been in the UK since 2003 and has recently been given Leave To Remain (LTR) due to being the single parent of her British Citizen son. Miremba's son suffers from autism, and in addition she has recently been experiencing severe anxiety as a result of her immigration status and housing situation. Miremba used to work as a carer, but had to stop as she cannot afford childcare for her son. She has a No Recourse to Public Funds status, meaning she cannot access most types of public funding, trapping her into having to rely on her local council for housing support (under Section 17 of the Children’s Act). Miremba wants to go back to work, but if she does she will no longer qualify for financial support, and what little money she makes won't be enough to support her family. Miremba has been relying on the help of friends to support herself and her son, and has also been relying on the support from LRMN. We have been providing Miremba with regular food parcels from our food bank as well as providing her with emotional support via our weekly Women’s Group. Miremba’s case is an example of those who are subject to the NRPF condition, as she is allowed to remain in the country, but is not given the support necessary to live independently, work, or pursue further education. She is instead forced to seek support from agencies such as LRMN and friends, and is not provided with the means for herself and her son to thrive.

*Client's name and nationality have been changed to protect their identity'