‘We’ll keep helping unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in county’
County councillors have united in their determination to continue to help unaccompanied, often traumatised, asylum-seeking children who arrive in West Sussex.
The issue was discussed during a meeting of the full council on Friday, after a motion was tabled by Kirsty Lord (Lib Dem, Hassocks and Burgess Hill South).
As well as asking the council to continue working with other authorities, particularly Kent and Portsmouth, to help the children, Ms Lord praised the role played by foster carers across the county.
She said: “Despite arriving mostly as teenagers, with limited English and understanding of our culture, and having suffered significant losses and hardship, every day these children are achieving remarkable things.
“They’re going to school, they’re making friends and becoming part of a new family, all while dealing with legal processes and trauma.
“They achieve excellent exam results. Some have secured places at prestigious universities, others are making a difference within their communities here in West Sussex.”
As part of the UK Resettlement Scheme, West Sussex committed itself to taking in 60 families from refugee camps between 2015 and 2020, with up to ten more in 2021.
The meeting was told that, as of July, 48 have arrived.
On top of that, the council acts as corporate parent to 76 unaccompanied children, who are living with foster carers.
Ms Lord’s motion was supported by David Barling (Con, Bramber Castle).
He said: “This motion is not about refugees, it’s not about asylum seekers, it’s not about trafficking, it’s not about criminality, it’s not about the rights and wrongs of all those things.
“It’s about children who, on the whole, come to our land traumatised, not able to speak the language, completely disorientated and in some cases not really knowing where they are.”
Ms Lord said she was prompted to table the motion following a summer in which increasing numbers of people arrived by boat to seek asylum in the UK.
The reception they received from some corners was openly hostile, and Ms Lord described some of the rhetoric aimed at asylumseekers as ‘dehumanising’.
Others simply got on with the job of helping people in need.
Ms Lord and other Liberal Democrats have signed up to the Red Cross campaign Miles For Refugees and hope to raise more than £2,000 by running, cycling and walking hundreds of miles.