Support refugee children

What’s often forgotten in discussions of the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe is that a large swath of these refugees are mere children, with many of them starting their new lives away from unspeakable violence sent completely unaccompanied.

Unite and other TUC trade unions called on the trade union movement to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with all refugees in a motion at conference which discussed the specific impact of the crisis on refugee children and the attendant support that they will need.

The motion was overwhelmingly carried yesterday (September 14).

Speaking in support of the motion was Unite delegate Norma Dudley, a health visitor who argued that adequately funded public health services such as health visiting and school nursing are fundamental to the future well-being of refugee and asylum-seeking children.

“In all the trauma, relocation and legal difficulties that [refugee children and asylum seeker families] experience, their long-term health needs are often overlooked,” she explained.

“Health outcomes for children not living with their families are significantly poorer than those of other children,” she pointed out.

“If these children are in school, they will be identified and assessed by school nurses who carry out universal health screenings for all children between the ages of 0 and 19,” Dudley added. ”They are well placed to respond to the needs of refugee children and of unaccompanied minors who have no one to advocate for them.”

That is, Dudley highlighted, “if the school nursing service continues to be funded.”

She described the funding crisis now engulfing health visiting and school nursing, whose commissioning last year was transferred from the NHS to local authorities. These services are now no longer ring-fenced, and, along with other public health services, are facing a ÂŁ200m slash this year alone.

One “glaring” example of the services being decimated is in Bromley, Dudley noted, where the council has announced that there will be no school nursing services from March of next year.

This move, she argued, entails “snatching away the only public health service dedicated to children’s needs.”

Urging Congress to support the motion, Dudley also called on everyone to encourage local authorities to a provide a “well resourced and professional school nursing and health visiting service.”

“When universal public health services are cut,” Dudley concluded, “it is always the most vulnerable who suffer.”