Hi everyone.
Part of the reason for posting is I am so incandescent with fury I have to go public, but mainly, I would welcome ideas as to how to help this client.
I have just met an 18 year old Iranian girl, an asylum seeker, with a 5 year old child. In Iran, where women actually can access education, she was prevented from going to school by her father. She therefore would not have been permitted to leave the house. The degree of relationship to her of the male who impregnated her at the age of 12 can therefore reasonably be inferred. She's been in the UK for just over a year and a half, presumably either with her family or because she was got out alone somehow or other. She's just been dispersed to Southampton.
I've been in touch with Social Services, to see if she could get any support with childcare so that she herself can access fulltime education before she gets to 19 - thus enabling her at least to get one year's fulltime education before she becomes too old to be funded by the government. They are not interested as she is over 18 and therefore an adult.
To the best of my knowledge, recent changes in EMA mean that she is also not eligible to claim this to pay for childcare even though she is under 19.
Does anyone have any ideas at all of how we can help her access fulltime education and funding for after-school childcare?
best wishes
Allegra Carlton
ESOL and Training Co-ordinator
City Life Education and Action for Refugees
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