Migration, Displacement & Child Health Stream 

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