PB5 noted that providing support to secure schools places within the initial four week period was not a good use of resources for the Education Authority or schools and was often not in the interests of children: “… the workload on our team and the impacts on the children for a great effort it really has not been in anybody’s interest to have that constant turn. And also the schools in the close proximity to the hotels are just a revolving door. You have [a child] this week [spend] three days trying to stop them crying, get them settled, they’re gone on Friday, another child’s arriving on Tuesday, away the following Monday. They can’t keep up with the pace of the move-ons” (PB5). PB5 noted that the situation would be kept under review depending on whether the length of stay in hotels changed: “… if we see that families are going to be there longer and that there’s a slow-down we’ll go back and ask the question, and we can adapt that policy based on what we’re seeing at the time” (PB5). PB6 said that frequent schooling changes could be traumatic: “… these are children who have generally gone through huge trauma already. You go through this process to place them in a school, maybe buy them a uniform, tell them they’re starting in this school. They might go for a couple of days and then they are moved again to somewhere else in Northern Ireland… you’re just adding another layer of trauma essentially and, you know, it’s not… well, it’s not good use of anyone’s time” (PB6). They also commented that when families had particular housing needs (often around disability) which meant that they had to stay longer in hotels, support would continue to be provided in hotels. Some concerns were expressed about the accuracy of Mears data indicating that families only spent four weeks in contingency accommodation. CSO2 commented “… it would be really interesting to see how long are some children spending... living in hotels, who do not have access to school” (CSO 2). Others suggested that although the average stay might be four weeks, some spend considerably longer than that in hotels. CSO3 said: “… they say you are temporary and they will give you so you can only stay there for four weeks, which is not true. A person can be there more. So there’s a problem, and this has been challenging to say they cannot penalise children because they live in a hostel, so the children should be in the school” (CSO3). CSO4 said that they had got different figures on the length of stay from the Home Office: “I went to the Home Office and asked them for the average days of a family in a hotel and it was around 80 days… So it’s contrary to what… Mears had been saying” (CSO4). CSO2 questioned whether support was being provided for families who were in hotels for longer than four weeks: “let’s say if within the family you have a family member, maybe, it’s a parent or one of the children who is a wheelchair user, Mears can’t quickly move them out of the hotel because there’s very little adapted accommodation, asylum accommodation out there. So, this family becomes stranded in the hotel and, you know, all of the children then don’t get school places” (CSO2).
CSO4 raised concerns about the fact that children could be missing out on education as a result of the Education Authority’s change in practice (whether that was for four weeks or longer). CSO4 said “… if my child [was] without a school for a number of months, I would have educational welfare asking me what’s happening, it is my duty, but there seems to be a reluctance to have that same afforded to newcomer children who are seeking protection. So that’s where there’s a great disadvantage” (CSO4). CSO9 noted that the effect of the change was to limit children’s access to education: “What they [the Education Authority] haven’t done is put an education offer back in the five week space, they’ve said it can’t be done, it’s impossible... And they’ve also said that it is up to families and schools to, kind of, you know, to arrange remote curricular access between themselves. They’re basically saying, we’re not impacting on your right to an education because you can go on ahead and find a school yourself if you want... we’re not telling schools not to register you. When really they are, because schools will see the change in practice, and I will turn up at the site, at the school with my three children, and they will know this family’s probably only coming to me for four or five weeks” (CSO9). CSO4 and CSO9 were concerned by the way in which the decision had been taken to make changes to support offered in hotels. CSO4 noted that the change had been made “without notification to the sector” while CSO9 said “… that’s a clear policy and resource change and it should have been equality screened and… consulted on”. CSO5 was also concerned that while the decision to change the policy had been explained, the message that had got through to people on the ground was rather different: “… they [the Education Authority] also said, look, and that [the change in policy] doesn’t mean that you can’t go to school or you can’t get a school place, it just means we’re not going to help you. And they also said, and we don’t mean that you don’t get your uniform grant or your transport assistance or your free school meals, it’s just that we’re not going to help you. But actually, on the ground, people are still being told, ‘no, but you won’t… you can’t… your kid can’t go to school’. You know, it’s all very murky” (CSO5). PB6 commented on the communication of decision-making around the change as follows: “But when we have spoken to… the child’s advocate rights groups who raised a lot of those issues, you know, I think they’ve got it and they’ve understood it. And it’s maybe something for us there in terms of better communicating that up front, in terms of the rationale why this decision was taken” (PB6).
Final report of the of Ombudspersons and the Protection of Refugees and Asylum Seekers (OPRAS) project | 33
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