Migration, Displacement & Child Health Stream
Standards for Healthcare Delivery to Children and Young People Seeking Asylum and Refugees (CYPSAR)
Children and young people seeking asylum and refugees (CYPSAR) are a vulnerable population with complex physical and mental health needs. In the UK, significant variation in healthcare delivery for CYPSAR leads to disparities in access and quality of care. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the UK, affirms every child's right to health without discrimination. Healthcare professionals, as duty bearers, are obligated to uphold these rights.
ICHG has developed consensus standards to guide optimal healthcare delivery for CYPSAR. These standards, grounded in a rights-based approach, aim to reduce variation in care and complement existing RCPCH guidance for refugee and asylum-seeking children.
The standards outline essential benchmarks for healthcare provider organizations, with recommendations categorized as 'essential' (minimum requirements for all services) and 'aspirational' (best practices for specialist or tertiary services). To support implementation, workplaces should designate a local 'inclusion health champion.'
These standards serve as a tool for advocacy and improvement, supporting discussions between healthcare providers, planners, and commissioners to ensure high-quality care for CYPSAR. They are informed by feedback from CYPSAR with lived experience and peer review from relevant professionals, with updates anticipated as research and evaluation progress.
Three documents detail the standards for different healthcare settings: emergency departments, inpatient services, and outpatient care.
Explore the standards and help ensure equitable healthcare for CYPSAR.
Child migrants are children first
The ICHG Migration, Displacement and Child Advocacy Group endeavour to promote the rights of children seeking sanctuary and give platform to the voices of children and young people. In partnership with Derbyshire Refugee Solidarity Group, Bevan Healthcare and the HEARTS project we asked children and young people seeking asylum in the UK to share their hopes and dreams with us through art to commemorate Refugee Week 2023.
Our aim
Forced migration and displacement is a global health issue with direct and indirect impacts on child health and wellbeing. This advocacy group brings together ICHG members passionate about influencing policy and practice to positively impact on the health and wellbeing of child migrants both in the UK and in international/global settings. There are many opportunities to advocate for the rights and health of children seeking sanctuary, child refugees and undocumented migrants at local, national and global levels. As a new advocacy stream (2022) we are exploring these opportunities and different options for action, seeking areas where we as a group can have the greatest impact.
Activities to date
We delivered an ICHG session at the 2022 RCPCH conference on the theme: 'Child migrants are children first: advocating for the rights and health of child asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants'
In November 2022, members of the group wrote in the British Medical Journal demanding accountability from the UK government towards meeting its legal obligations for the health and wellbeing of asylum-seeking and refugee children and young people in the asylum accommodation system.
A current area of activity is scoping out how we can raise awareness of the health and wellbeing needs of child migrants amongst UK medical students, paediatric trainees and the wider child health community. Our ambition is to empower the current and future child health workforce with the knowledge and understanding needed to deliver high quality and holistic healthcare to child migrants in vulnerable circumstances and inspire a new generation of advocates for this population. As part of this endeavour we aim to encourage institutional change and support opportunities for related activities to become more embedded as part of the day to day work of clinicians
If you are an ICHG member and would like to join us on our advocacy journey or if you are working on any similar projects and would like to collaborate then please email amyjanestevens@doctors.org.uk