Building seven bridges with young asylum seekers living in exile in the UK (Part 2)

This paper is derived from a talk given in November 2016 as the Birkbeck Counselling Association Autumn Talk in collaboration with Psychodynamic Practice. The original talk has been divided into two related papers of which this is the second, concentrating on the effects on young asylum seekers of the political and social situation in which they find themselves when they reach the UK. Both papers explore how, working with young asylum seekers, we can slowly build sturdy and protective connections during and after the developmental years following experiences of sequential violence. This means building links within the internal worlds of these young people between themselves and: (i) different aspects of themselves that emerge after violence and loss; (ii) their peers; (iii) listening adults; (iv) various social influences; (v) cultural influences; (vi) their past, present and future lives; (vii) links with local, national and international communities. Describing further the work that takes place at the Baobab Centre, a ‘transitional therapeutic community’, and using case material to illustrate this, the author raises the challenge of how we might best address the needs of this group of children, adolescents and young adults who objectively have to live for several years of their lives in a situation of ongoing uncertainty that is in fact much more than a young person can bear. As Jo Goldstein a legal specialist, Anna Freud a child psychoanalyst and Al Solnit a paediatrician write, in their trilogy of works, States and State Agencies cannot parent children, and children need involved parenting, (i.e. involved relationships with individual caring adults). Often for children separated from their original families, the parenting role is split between large bureaucracies and foster carers who work with agencies outsourced from the Social Services Departments. Yet this country makes Social Services Departments and the Home Office responsible for decisions about whether or not child asylum seekers might remain in the UK, in fact often without a very deep assessment and hence little knowledge and understanding of their experiences and their developmental needs. Asylum seeking minors usually have to wait for decisions about their safety and protection, and about permanence and continuity, for a much longer period of time than a child can bear.