An examination of British society's response to child refugees through an analysis of charity sector support for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children

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To understand how British society is responding to unaccompanied asylum seeking and refugee children we must not simply look to its laws, but also to how societal influences, from voter anxiety concerning immigration to charitable activism, impact how policy makers and civil society stakeholders apply, enforce and challenge the laws. For this reason we must look to court rooms, but to classrooms; not only formal education settings, but informal, charity sector programs. For this PhD I seek to examine the latter, charity sector programs for unaccompanied Asylum Seeking and Refugee children, to increase our social research understanding about how modern British society1 responds to child refugees. I will undertake this research through an interdisciplinary socio-legal approach which combines the academic insights of Social Science and Law with the practitioner insights of charity sector workers. The findings will explain the interplay of regulatory regimes across and within the public and charity sector which have come to shape how unaccompanied Asylum Seeking and Refugee children are governed. In particular I will focus on whether charity sector 'Refugee Support' for unaccompanied Asylum Seeking and Refugee children is shouldering statutory requirements of care and Home Office duties. This analysis will help our society decide whether charity sector support for refugee children is beneficial or necessary, or whether unaccompanied Asylum Seeking and Refugee children would be better served by the state, like British children.