What is the age assessment process?

On this page:

Overview

Why do children get wrongfully classed as adults?

Process on arrival to the UK

Once deemed an adult and in adult accommodation

Local Authority short form assessment

Local Authority long form assessment

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Overview

Children who come to the UK alone to seek asylum (known as unaccompanied asylum seeking children - UASC or UAS Children) have the same rights to safeguarding and care as any other child in the UK.

These rights arise from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and UK laws and guidance such as the Children’s Act 1989 (England) and Social Service and Wellbeing Act 2014 (Wales).

These rights help make sure they have a safe place to live, can go to school, and get the support they need.

If someone wrongly decides these children are adults, it can have longer-term catastrophic consequences.

They might be put in adult housing, which isn't safe for them and is an immediate safeguarding risk
Their asylum claim might be processed as an adult's claim, which means the protections for children that are including the asylum system would not apply to them
Being disbelieved is (re)traumatising for a child
They might not get the special help that children should receive to stay safe, integrate into British society and access health care and education
Those going through immigration detention or criminal justice processes might be held in adult prisons and immigration detention centres. As well as being a huge risk to safety, it is illegal to place a child in adult prison or detention
Once they turn 18, they might not get the extra help that they would have been entitled to. For example, some children who are under 18 when they arrive in the UK receive “Leaving Care” support when they turn 18 - but if they are not accepted as a child, they won’t receive this

The European Commission defines an age assessment as the “process by which authorities seek to establish chronological age, or range of age, of a person to determine whether an individual is a child or not”.

This means that figuring out someone's exact age is an inexact science. Many of these young people don't have official papers to prove their age. That's why it's really important to have good systems in place to check their age fairly and carefully.

We know that the best way of determining age is through a chronological social work assessment.

This means the social worker constructs a timeline of a young person’s life, from the time they were born through to the date of the assessment, piecing together information and considering evidence to determine the credibility of the young person’s account of their age.

There are many reasons why a young person’s account may be inconsistent. Amongst many of the factors that impact a child’s ability to recall information, as well as their presentation, are:

the effects of trauma
mental health issues
learning difficulties