United Kingdom
Training
LOCATION
Online and across the UK
DATES
2022 – present
SERVICE
Capacity Building and Awareness Raising Training
RYS’ training shares seven years of expertise gained from supporting children and young people on the move across Europe.
This expertise is shared with organisations and communities that support unaccompanied children, via capacity building and awareness raising trainings. This work is delivered as three trainings under the banner of Journey with an Unaccompanied Child. The training is delivered by RYS’ former frontline staff and young people with lived experience of arriving to the UK as children.
For more information on these courses, navigate the training menu above.
'No Children in Hotels' Project
LOCATION
Berkshire & West London
DATES
April 2023 – Present
SERVICE
Access to Rights, Holistic Wellbeing Support
In January 2023, RYS was awarded a grant by the Blagrave Trust to start its first project in the UK that directly supports unaccompanied children.
In April 2023 RYS launched a new project titled ‘No Children in Hotels’ to help age-disputed asylum seeking children leave adult hotel accommodations and enter the appropriate care systems. The project team connects with children at their accommodations, providing welfare-based support and links to local groups and services. RYS ensures that every child has access to information, knows their rights, and takes the necessary steps to access them.
Keep an eye on our Latest News for regular updates on the project, and find Resources regarding the issue here.
Access To Rights
Providing children with access to information, supporting them to be taken into the appropriate care systems.
Promoting Wellbeing
Monitoring the wellbeing of children and referring them to other services where available. Provision of activities for recreation and respite.
Peer-To-Peer Support
Creation of ‘pop-up’ safe spaces where children can build supportive networks with each other whilst engaging in recreational activities.
Supporting Advocacy
Providing data and insights regarding the context and the conditions children face, to the network of organisations already working on this issue.
France
LOCATION
Calais & Dunkirk, France
DATES
2016 – 2021, Direct Work 2021 – 2024, Intermediary Funder
SERVICE
Mobile Youth Service and Child Protection Unit
Between 2016 and 2021, RYS improved the safety and well-being of thousands of displaced children and young people who were residing outside of state care systems. Between 2021 and 2024 RYS funded ECPAT France to continue its work.
In northern France, unaccompanied children and young people remain highly vulnerable, suffering from daily police pressure using violent means to dismantle makeshift camps, lacking appropriate hygiene, sanitation, or healthcare as well as sufficient services providing age and language appropriate information about their legal options.
For five years, RYS provided safe spaces, both fixed and mobile, from which a team of local professionals ensured that children knew their rights and were able to access state child protection services if they wanted to.
In 2021, RYS committed itself to a new chapter of support for children in northern France by releasing an open-call for locally registered organisations to take the work forward. In September of that year Every Child Protected Against Trafficking (ECPAT) France was selected and offered a three-year grant. Putting a French organisation in the place of RYS has enhanced coordination and collaboration with the institutions that are responsible for protecting children at local and national level.
How Did We Do It?
Welfare Checks
Building trusting relationships with children in order to monitor their wellbeing.
Protection
Facilitating access to state child protection systems.
Information
Providing information on rights and legal routes to other countries (where they exist).
Fighting For Rights
Advocating for children’s rights, when these were denied by the state.
Activities
Running outdoor activities and trips that provide respite and support the building of trusting relationships with trained professionals, and self-protective networks among children themselves.
Health
Promoting healthy coping strategies among children who were in unimaginable living conditions.
Education
Providing fun lessons and activities including languages, science, maths… and lots of Lego building!
Referrals
Making referrals to other organisations for services not provided by RYS, for example food, clothing, phone credit, psychological support.
Greece
LOCATION
Athens, Greece
DATES
2017 – present
SERVICE
Safe Space and Social Service
In 2017 RYS founded Velos Youth in Athens, Greece, in order to hire local staff and begin the journey of nurturing an autonomous organisation that would eventually be entirely locally led, and independent of RYS.
Velos Youth supports unaccompanied young people on the move to access their rights, in order to restart and rebuild their lives. It achieves this via a holistic approach, providing access to legal, social and psychological support through an open safe space and supported accommodation. It focuses on young people building lives integrated within Greek society, to ensure long term stability and opportunities.
Today there are 1,000+ unaccompanied children in Greece. Upon turning 18 they are excluded from secure housing, integration services and guardianship. Wrapped in a legal limbo, they face significant barriers to integration including long asylum procedures; housing shortages; restricted access to medical care, education and employment. Velos’ activities centre around addressing these barriers and promoting wellbeing, social development and self-reliance; young people supported are treated as autonomous agents, with change fostered via the mentorship of qualified professional staff.
Today Velos Youth is independent of RYS, though RYS continues to act as an intermediary funder for a small number of Velos Youth’s projects.
The Velos Youth Centre provides a relaxed and welcoming safe place for young people to visit during the day.
The space offers basic services such as food and showers, and facilitates, through a team of local professionals, access to specialist NGO and state-run services. Caseworkers take a holistic approach to the wellbeing of young people, making internal and external referrals to protection, asylum, accommodation, employability and education services; protecting and advocating for their rights.
In 2021 Velos Youth also launched its Housing Integration Project. The project continues to complement the Velos Youth holistic care model and benefits young people already accessing other Velos Youth services. Through the programme young people are supported by a range of local professionals to find work, organise their finances and subsequently source stable private accommodation. The project uses a number of activities, arranged under the following two pillars, to achieve its mission to support integration and inclusion of young people, and to allow them to live in autonomy.
Velos Youth remains an essential sanctuary for displaced youth in Athens.