About the toolkit

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Are you providing support to a refugee or asylum seeking young person? This toolkit provides guidance and templates on the age assessment process to help you and them.

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The toolkit is designed to help anyone who comes across a child who has been deemed to be an adult and wants to help them. You might find it useful if you are:

• A staff member or volunteer in asylum accommodation, like hotels
• A staff member in a semi-independent accommodation or other Local Authority settings
• A volunteer or staff member within the charity sector
• Somebody working in health, education and housing

How to use the toolkit

Go to the top right of the page and click 🔍 to use the search function

The guidance

Explains the age assessment process in simple terms and shows you how to help young people.

Start here at "How can I help?”

You can use it to train new team members, learn about the process yourself, or as a helpful reference document that you can check whenever needed.

Link to guidance

The templates and resources

Downloadable, ready-to-use documents to save you time and make your work easier.

Link to templates and resources

Resources for young people

Resources to explain the age assessment process to young people in their own language.

🔴 Link to young people's resources

Important:

• This toolkit should not be used to give legal advice and is for information and guidance only. When using this guide, make sure you follow your workplace's policies and procedures. If you're not sure about something, ask someone in charge at your organisation.
• This toolkit was written primarily by those working in England and Wales. There are some key differences in the systems of Scotland and Northern Ireland, so please bear this in mind when using the toolkit. We hope to make future versions relevant to all countries in the UK.

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Last updated

This toolkit is up to date as of July 2025. It will be updated regularly according to changes on the ground.

**Sign up to be notified of any updates**

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Copy this toolkit

You can copy this toolkit and modify it for your own organisation. To learn more about how to do this:

How to duplicate this toolkit

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Acknowledgements

This toolkit was made by the Refugee Council in collaboration with the following organisations: Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, TGP Cymru, Da’aro Youth Project, Humans for Rights Network, Barnardo's Northern Ireland, PAFRAS Leeds, Roundabout Homeless Charity, Care for Calais and Nottingham Refugee Forum. Special thanks to the British Red Cross for sharing their internal age disputes casework guidance, which has informed this toolkit.

For more information on the context behind the toolkit, please see the following **report,** “Forced Adulthoods”. ****

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Get in touch if you have feedback or a suggestion on how to make the toolkit better: **[email protected].**

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