Search

The UK's asylum system involves the 'deliberate use' of inhumane treatment against asylum seekers, MPs and Lords said last week. The joint committee on human rights said ministers were practising [...]

To mark World Mental Health Day on 10 October, and as Mind's celebrates its 60th anniversary, Prabjit Korotana salutes the gains that have been made in treating mental health patients [...]

The Scottish and UK governments must pay 'urgent attention' to the lack of suitable accommodation for young asylum seekers arriving in Scotland, a major report claims. Many unaccompanied children, especially [...]

Local authorities have a duty to provide this country's estimated 6,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children with care and support. On the whole, this has fallen to councils in south east England [...]

Asmall number of councils in England could take over the care of all unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under a government review that campaigners fear is not child-centred and is driven by [...]

Adults who claim asylum at immigration screening units will be electronically tagged. Immigration minister Tony McNulty said it would discourage unfounded asylum applications. It will be applied to all adult [...]

The Home Office has begun an evaluation of the policy that can lead to failed asylum seekers having their children taken into care. The evaluation of section nine of the [...]

Social services directors have written to councils outlining their opposition to the policy that can lead to the children of failed asylum seekers being taken into care. The Association of [...]

An attempt by the government to overturn a court ruling that it breached the human rights of three asylum seekers failed last week. It had been forced to revise section [...]

Staff at an immigration removal centre are allowed to routinely carry weapons. The chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers, has now called for an end to the 'intimidating' practice of [...]

A mother and son have become the second family to be evicted under the government's policy that can lead to the children of failed asylum seekers being taken into care. [...]

Eleven local authorities have called on the Home Office to rethink its policy of taking the children of failed asylum seekers into care if they refuse to leave the country. [...]

Rising numbers of unaccompanied children seeking asylum are having their ages disputed by the Home Office, resulting in them being treated as adults, the Refugee Council has told Community Care. [...]

The government has pledged to tackle Northern Ireland's practice of detaining asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers in prisons. Lord Rooker, the minister of state for regeneration and regional development, [...]

The government's proposal for some failed asylum seekers to do community work in order to qualify for housing could breach the European Convention on Human Rights, peers and MPs have [...]

Nothing better illustrated the populist style of this home secretary than the law introduced to deny asylum seekers support if they were too slow to declare their intentions upon arrival [...]

The government has announced a climbdown on its policy of denying asylum seekers support unless they make their claim within three days of arriving in the UK. Under the revised [...]

Refugees will be at greater risk of persecution under the new EU asylum system, it is claimed. The new law, to be adopted by member states, is intended to set [...]

The government suffered a setback in its reform of the asylum and immigration system this week when the Lords voted to increase the time for unsuccessful asylum seekers to appeal. [...]

Members of the audience at Community Care LIVE's first Question Time were united last week in their condemnation of government proposals to remove the children of failed asylum seekers who [...]

The Home Office is considering forcibly removing unaccompanied minors whose asylum claims have failed, Community Care has learned. A Home Office spokesperson said that no decisions have been taken, but [...]

AHigh Court challenge to the government's decision to block state support to asylum seekers from the 10 accession countries will take place next week. A judicial review is being sought [...]

Proposals to prevent failed asylum seekers and others with no legal right to be in the UK accessing free care from GPs are being launched this week. The government consultation [...]

Thousands of asylum seeker families who could be eligible for a government scheme granting indefinite leave to remain in the UK are still awaiting a decision more than a month [...]

No asylum seekers from the 10 EU accession countries supported by the National Asylum Support Service were made homeless over the weekend after a last minute reprieve. The government had [...]

The government stands accused of causing a crisis for local authorities through its decision to deny support to asylum seekers from the new EU countries. Despite warnings from councils and [...]

More than 2,500 asylum seekers from the 10 EU accession countries could be made homeless overnight next week, the Refugee Council has warned. Asylum seekers from the accession countries will [...]

Section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 is forcing female asylum seekers into prostitution, campaigners have warned. The section denies support to those who fail to make [...]

London councils are set to face a bill of [pounds sterling]40m because of the government's decision to grant leave to remain to up to 15,000 asylum seeker families, the Association [...]

The government's plans to withdraw support from failed asylum seekers and take their children into care has been dealt a blow in a court ruling for local authorities. Earlier this [...]

Asylum seekers applying for refugee status in the European Union could be divided into two classes in the future, depending on the risks they face in their home countries. The [...]

The government has announced that it will not be commissioning an independent review into section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 this week, despite calls from MPs [...]

The government performed a U-turn this week on plans to remove the right to challenge asylum decisions in the courts after an intervention from Lord Irvine, the former lord chancellor. [...]

Unaccompanied asylum seekers approaching 18 and awaiting decisions on their claims will face a section 55 interview like their adult counterparts, it emerged last week. They will be denied help [...]

The government has been forced to drop its plans to curtail the right of appeal for asylum seekers. This is not just a small concession to head off rebellion in [...]

Home secretary David Blunkett is considering backing down on controversial plans to create a single tier of appeal for asylum seekers after they were heavily criticised by the Lord Chief [...]

The government's controversial plans to reduce the appeal rights of asylum seekers and remove their entitlement to benefits made it through the House of Commons unchanged this week despite two [...]

Many children could end up homeless and sleeping rough because of measures in the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Bill, social workers and children's charities have warned. Under [...]

The debate on immigration has recently taken a new, in some ways more adult, turn. Relieved by official confirmation of the dramatic drop in numbers seeking asylum in the UK, [...]

Almost 70 per cent of asylum seekers denied support under section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 have been forced to sleep rough or are faced with [...]

The children's commissioner for Wales has issued what is being seen as a direct challenge to government proposals that could see the children of destitute asylum seekers removed from their [...]

Asylum-seekers who should have become the responsibility of the National Asylum Support Service four years ago but remain supported by councils could be left destitute when the European Union expands [...]

Politicians have warned that proposals to create a single tier of appeal for asylum seekers might breach the Human Rights Act 1998. Under the Asylum and Immigration Bill now going [...]

Councils have warned they will be left hundreds of thousands of pounds out of pocket thanks to a government decision to refuse to fully fund the care and accommodation costs [...]

Many Home Office asylum decisions are incorrect which results in asylum seekers being returned to dangerous situations, according to a new report. Decisions are often based on inaccurate information about [...]

Local authorities have warned that a House of Lords ruling giving freedom of movement to asylum seekers after they have been granted asylum could have a drastic effect on councils [...]

Refugee campaigners have hailed a High Court judgement as a 'potential major turning point' for thousands of asylum seekers affected by section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act [...]

The Home Office contested two councils' objections this week to its plans to build accommodation centres for asylum seekers on land in their areas. Last month, Cherwell and Rushcliffe Councils [...]

The government's long-awaited Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill has been criticised for proposing to educate asylum seekers' children in accommodation centres instead of mainstream schools. The bill, published last week, [...]

In Italy, the mental hospital has been abandoned as a source of treatment for cases diagnosed after 1978, as outlined in Public Law 180 of that year. Deinstitutionalized patients have been placed in sheltered facilities or now live in the community. Empirical evaluations of the impact this has made indicate that most discharged psychiatric patients have made a successful shift in terms of adjustment to treatment in community mental health clinics (CMHCs). By 1984, 248 residential facilities had been set up throughout Italy, housing nearly 3,000 ex-mental patients. Rehabilitation programs were also set up within and independently of CMHCs. A study of patients discharged from one of Italy's largest asylums found that 40 percent lived in community-type lodgings, 43 percent were in geriatric or private nursing homes, and 5 percent were in private boarding homes. An evaluation of the social and clinical characteristics of 1,716 patients being treated in 35 CMHCs and randomly selected over a 30-day period, demonstrated that the majority were from lower economic classes and tended to be uneducated and unemployed. Seventy-five percent lived with their families. Their diagnoses included schizophrenia (37 percent), major affective disorders (13 percent), anxiety or depressive neurosis (26 percent), organic disorders (5 percent) and alcohol or drug abuse (4 percent). Twenty-nine percent of the patients were found to be receiving inadequate care. While former mental institutions primarily relied on custodial care and psychotropic drugs, CMHCs were shown to rely more on mixed treatment approaches, psychotherapy and rehabilitation. The effects of abandoning the asylum upon homeless, severely debilitated and violent psychiatric patients in Italy have not yet been evaluated. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)