What is it like to foster a young person who came to the UK alone?

On 31 March 2025, Kent was looking after 451 young people who had arrived in the UK without a parent. Hampshire was looking after 181. No other council in England was looking after more than Hampshire, and only Birmingham, at 176, came close. If you live anywhere in the South, the young people this article is about are already in your county, and most of them are not living with a family.

Please note: this is general information about fostering, not immigration or legal advice. The asylum rules changed for claims made on or after 2 March 2026, and they change often. A young person’s own solicitor is the right person to explain their case.

Who are these young people?

The Department for Education counts them as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, or UASC, which is the term you will see on council websites and in the paperwork. We will say “young people” from here on, because that is what they are. There were 6,540 of them in care in England on 31 March 2025, about 8% of all children in care, and down 12% on the year before.

The same figures show two things that shape everything else. 94% are boys and young men. And 90% were aged 16 or over, which is why this article mostly says “he”. So when people picture a small child stepping off a boat, they are mostly picturing the wrong person. The typical young person here is a 16- or 17-year-old lad who has crossed several countries, often over months, and who is now expected to go to college, learn English, sit an asylum interview and cook his own tea, all at once.

The figure that should change your mind

Here is the part that surprised us. Of those 6,540 young people, only 38% were living with foster carers. 56% were in supported accommodation, which usually means a room in a shared house with staff who visit or are on site. It is a legal option for 16- and 17-year-olds, and some young people prefer it.

But a lot of them would do better in a family. A supported flat does not notice that you have stopped eating, or that you sit up until 4am because the dark is where the bad memories live. A foster carer does. More of them could live in family homes if more carers came forward for a 16-year-old boy who speaks little English. That is a gap you can close.

Why the South sees so many arrivals

Young people usually ask for help at the point where they enter the country, and for many that is the Kent coast. That is why Kent’s number is so high. Since February 2022 there has been a mandated National Transfer Scheme, which moves young people between councils so that no single area carries the whole load.

• A council can refer a young person into the scheme when the number of unaccompanied young people it supports is at or above 0.1% of its general child population.
• The transfer should be completed within ten working days of the referral.
• The decision to refer “must take into account the child’s best interests as a primary consideration”, in the words of the scheme’s protocol (version 8.0, June 2025).

In practice this means two things for carers along the south coast and in the counties behind it. Some young people will come to you within days of arriving, sometimes as an emergency fostering call. Others will come to you after a move from another council, having already been somewhere else first. Both are unsettling for them, and neither is a sign that anything has gone wrong.

What the fostering standards say, and what they do not

We read the Fostering Services National Minimum Standards looking for guidance on this. The words “unaccompanied”, “asylum”, “refugee”, “immigration” and “interpreter” do not appear anywhere in them. We checked twice. There is no paragraph about children who have come from another country at all.

That does not mean you are on your own. The standards that apply to every child still apply here, and a few of them fit this situation well.

• 2.1: “Children are provided with personalised care that meets their needs and promotes all aspects of their individual identity.”
• 25.12: the fostering service “has the facilities to work with children with physical, sensory and learning impairments, communication difficulties or for whom English is not their first language.” It goes on to include translating and explaining documents.
• 28.1: the allowance covers “reasonable leisure interests of the child, including insurance, holidays, birthdays, school trips, religious festivals etc”. Eid counts, and so does a new coat for it.

The detailed guidance sits somewhere else, in the Department for Education’s statutory guidance Care of unaccompanied migrant children and child victims of modern slavery, published in November 2017. It is nearly nine years old and, as far as we can find, still the current version. Your supervising social worker should know it. It is worth asking whether they do.

The first few days

The 2017 guidance is blunt about the risk: young people who arrived alone are “at risk of going missing from care, often within the first 72 hours”. Some have been trafficked and are being pulled back by the people who brought them. The guidance asks every foster carer to “be aware of any particular risks of them going missing, or of any risk to the child from those who wish to exploit them”.

So the first days are about safety and trust, and the two work together. A few simple things help:

• Food he recognises on the first night, even if it is only rice, bread and eggs. Ask what he eats, with an interpreter or a translation app, before you guess.
• A phone charger. His phone may be the only link to anyone he knows, and taking it away without explaining why will feel like a threat.
• A simple drawn map of the house and the street, with your number and the out-of-hours number on it.
• Knowing exactly who to ring, and when, if he is not home at the agreed time. Your social worker will agree this with you before he arrives, and you will write it down.

We have written more about the first two weeks after a child arrives, and most of it applies here too.

Making room for his language and his faith

The 2017 guidance says “no assumptions should be made about the child’s language skills and an interpreter will often be required.” A young man from Eritrea may speak Tigrinya and some Arabic. A young man from Afghanistan may speak Pashto or Dari, and the two are different languages. Your social worker arranges interpreters for meetings. At home, you will get by with translation apps and a lot of goodwill for a few weeks, and then faster than you expect with the English he learns at college.

The guidance also says a young person’s “ethnicity, cultural and linguistic background should be taken into account” when a home is found for them. You can do this without sharing his faith or speaking his language. What it asks of you is interest, and some space: somewhere quiet to pray, halal meat in the fridge if he eats it, a lift to the mosque on a Friday, and patience during Ramadan when he is fasting through a college day. For a lot of households it becomes one of the best parts of the arrangement.

The asylum claim, and your part in it

Each young person should have a solicitor who handles the legal side. Under the Home Office’s own guidance on children’s claims (version 5.0, December 2024), “children making an asylum claim in their own right who are under 18 are eligible for assistance in the form of legal aid”, so there is no bill for him or for you. The 2017 guidance calls getting that legal advice “one of the most crucial aspects of the social worker’s role”.

You are not the lawyer and nobody will ask you to be. But you may be asked to go to the interview. The Home Office requires an independent adult with responsibility for the child to be present when a child is interviewed about their claim, and its list of people who can do that includes “a foster carer”. Your job there is to be a calm, familiar face and to ask for a break if he needs one.

The waiting is often the hardest part. Months can pass between the interview and a decision, and a letter from the Home Office can undo weeks of settling in a single morning. The 2017 guidance warns that after a refusal, the risk of a young person going missing goes up. If one of those letters arrives, ring your social worker the same day.

When nobody is sure of his age

Some young people arrive without documents, and some are told the council or the Home Office doubts they are under 18. It is upsetting for them and it can feel awkward for you. The rule is clear, though. The Home Office’s guidance on assessing age (version 13.0, June 2026) says that “where there is still uncertainty about whether the individual is an adult or a child, the individual should be treated as a child pending further consideration of their age”. Assessments carried out by a council have to meet the standard set by the courts, often called a “Merton compliant” assessment.

Scientific methods using X-rays and MRI scans have been allowed for Home Office age assessments since 10 January 2024, although the guidance itself says no single method can pin down a person’s age precisely. If a young person living with you is going through this, your role is the same as always: look after him as the child he says he is, and keep a careful record of what you see. Our guide to what foster carers write down covers how.

Family he left behind

Many young people do not know where their parents, brothers or sisters are, or whether they are alive. The British Red Cross runs a free and confidential international family tracing service, and social workers can refer a young person to it. The 2017 guidance also notes that the Home Office has its own duty to try to trace a child’s family after they claim asylum.

This needs care, and it is not something to start on your own. The 2017 guidance points out that in some cases the family “may have been involved in trafficking or exploiting the child”, and says social workers must first talk to the young person’s immigration solicitor before anyone tries to reach the family. What you can do is listen. If he wants to talk about home, let him. If he does not, that is his choice too.

Bad nights, and what helps

The 2017 guidance says these young people “may also require specialist mental health support to help them deal with the impact of loss and trauma.” In ordinary terms, that can look like very little sleep, headaches and stomach aches with no clear cause, long silences, or sudden anger about something small. None of it is aimed at you.

What helps is mostly unglamorous. A routine he can predict. Meals at the same time. A lamp he can leave on. Football, the gym or a bike, because a tired body sleeps better. And a GP registration in the first week, so there is somewhere to go when he needs more. Our piece on what trauma and attachment mean in foster care explains more of the thinking behind this.

College, and then 18

The guidance notes that “some unaccompanied children who have recently arrived in the country may have never had access to education before.” Others were at school until the week they left. Most 16- and 17-year-olds start with English classes at a local college and move on from there. Expect a mix of fast progress and frustration, sometimes in the same week.

Eighteen comes quickly when a young person arrives at 16. Staying Put, which lets a young person keep living with their foster carer after 18, can apply here, and we have explained how living with you after 18 works. Be aware that a young person’s immigration status can affect what support is available to them as an adult. That is a question for his social worker and solicitor, and it is worth asking early rather than in the month before his birthday. Our guide to teaching a young person about money is also useful here, because many will be budgeting on their own sooner than most teenagers.

What you would be paid

South Coast Fostering pays £507.50 per week, per child for a young person aged 11 or over. That is a single payment combining the allowance for his care with a professional fee for your role. You can see the full breakdown on our fostering payments and allowances page.

Could you do this?

You do not need to speak Pashto, know the asylum rules or have travelled. You need a spare bedroom, a steady home, and the patience to be a reliable adult for a young person who has had very few. If you have raised teenagers, worked with young adults or moved country yourself, you already have more of what this needs than you might think.

If you are in Kent, Hampshire or anywhere in between, you are close to where the need is greatest.

You won’t have to do this alone

At South Coast Fostering you have a named supervising social worker, out-of-hours support, and support built around you as a foster carer. Our training and development continues after you are approved, and you can ask for it to cover the things that matter for the young person living with you. We will be honest with you about what caring for a young person who arrived alone involves before you ever say yes.

More from our guides for carers: Guidance to support children in care with insecure immigration status

Frequently asked questions

How old are young people who come to the UK alone?

Mostly 16 or 17. Department for Education figures show 90% of unaccompanied young people in care in England on 31 March 2025 were aged 16 or over, and 94% were male.

Do I need to speak their language?

No. Interpreters are arranged for meetings, and at home most carers manage with translation apps and patience while the young person learns English at college.

Will I have to deal with the asylum claim?

No. Each young person should have a solicitor, and legal aid is available for children’s asylum claims. You may be asked to go to the Home Office interview as the independent adult, which foster carers are allowed to do.

What if someone doubts the young person’s age?

Home Office guidance says that where there is still uncertainty, the person should be treated as a child while their age is considered further. You carry on caring for them as a child.

Can they stay with me after they turn 18?

Staying Put can apply, but a young person’s immigration status can affect the support available as an adult. Ask their social worker and solicitor early.