Social Services: A Report of the Joint Review of Social Services in Borough of Lambeth December 2000

Social Services: A Report of the Joint Review of Social Services in Borough of Lambeth December 2000

Quotes

Mentioning 'asylum seekers','Asylum Seekers Team' and ' Unaccompanied minors'

"Key Findings -Customer focus

2.2.1 Customer focus

The Authority is not yet customer focused. Service users and staff in other agencies reported difficulties in contacting staff and key access points in Children and Families Services have been closed for parts of the day. The quality and availability of service information is improving, but there is a marked difference between Adult and Children’s Services, the latter providing a very limited range of information. The reception office for the majority of asylum seekers fell far short of an acceptable venue for providing a high volume, initial assessment service.

3.8 Effectiveness of Services

Do services meet user needs?

3.8.1 Asylum seekers

The Asylum Seekers Team is tightly focused and well motivated but it can provide only very limited services to people who are often isolated and highly vulnerable.

The asylum seekers spoken to by the Joint Review Team described:

- living in poor conditions, for example, one man was living with 63 other residents in a hostel that had only 3 showers;

- being moved at short notice to different accommodation often a long way from the informal support networks they had begun to build in Lambeth; and

- a lack of organised networks, self-help and support groups for people in their situation.

The Team, which comprises 29 staff and has a caseload in excess of 3000, provides a well organised duty system that sees 40 people per day plus emergencies. The reception and interviewing facilities at Mary Seacole House were poor but the Authority has recognised this and was carrying out extensive changes at the time of the Joint Review. This will provide additional interviewing space and a more pleasant, less crowded waiting area. The Team has also set up a weekly drop-in outreach service and has arranged for a number of other agencies, including Health and Education, to hold surgeries at the same time. It also holds surgeries in hostels.

It provides an initial screening assessment within 60 minutes of presentation at reception in 100 per cent of cases and does the first assessment interview within 7 days of initial presentation in 99 per cent of cases (1 per cent do not turn up for their interviews). It has a reviewing system to ensure accommodation is right and that people are still eligible for support, but it only manages 60 per cent of reviews
within 1 month of the start of service.

Unaccompanied minors (under 16) have been the responsibility of Children and Families Services. These responsibilities are to pass to the Asylum Seekers Team in October 2000, a positive step that should strengthen consistency of practice. The Team has worked with a number of providers to offer an improved range of services for asylum seekers, including unaccompanied 16–18 year olds, and it now
has placements that provide some support to these vulnerable young people.

The Authority should consider ways in which it could:

- reduce the number of moves made by asylum seekers;

- facilitate the development of self-help and support groups; and

- improve the quality of the accommodation provided."

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