Kentish Express Ashford & District
Social workers to help with age check on ‘Jungle’ kids
Social workers from Kent are on standby to help assess the ages of would-be child migrants as the French authorities begin to dismantle the Calais camp.
Kent County Council has confirmed that it was approached by the Home Office at the end of last week concerning the possibility of staff being able to assist in identifying appropriate vulnerable children wanting to come to the UK.
There was criticism last week of the government over checks carried out on potential child migrants and their ages.
The council said it had told the Home Office that it was prepared to help but had heard nothing since the approach that was made on Friday.
It comes as the French authorities dismantle the Calais jungle camp and disperse the 10,000 migrants to 450 reception centres in different parts of France where asylum claims would be processed.
Meanwhile, the county council said it was not aware of being among authorities that had approached the Home Office earlier this year offering to help with age checks when the camp was dismantled.
It has been claimed that the Home Office did not respond to an early offer of help from councils.
According to David Simmonds of the Local Government Asso- ciation a meeting was held with officials about age checks in the summer.
He told the Daily Telegraph: “We made the offer in August and the Home Office didn’t take it up at the time. They only started asking for social workers with age assessment experience on Friday.
“The offer was not taken up quickly enough. I understand that on Friday the Home Office started asking Kent for social workers with experience in age assessment.”
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