Update on Undoc Camp projects
Undoc Camp at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation
Here’s an update on progress from the three winning teams.
First Start (working-title)
A website and text messaging service, connecting young people without regular status to local support services like the Post Office, legal aid or migrant support organisations
After meeting in March, the project has moved into a strategic phase, managed by Roisin Markham. Developer Jacob Payne is currently working on the front end build and design of the website, whilst the rest of the team are collating content. They aim to have a soft launch of the website in June. The project will be piloted in Croydon, London, where there are more young people seeking support and more legal representatives and migrant support organisations available to them. The website and text messaging service will list local services that might be of use to young people and will be in various languages from English to Arabic.
An anonymous, secure helpline linking vulnerable young people, including migrants, to trusted counsellors from relevant support organisations
Knowing where to go and who to trust in such times can be challenging for young people – particularly if they are uncomfortable to share their experiences with their existing networks.
The project supports the young person in need through the website, mobile app or text message, giving them the platform to chat and connect with counsellors according to their needs. Over the last couple of months, 2nd.Friend has been in conversation with Beat Bullying and Child Line, to understand how they can improve and define the service. The Italian charity helpline for young people, Telefono Azzurro, are currently testing the service and providing user feedback to help improve it. The website launch is expected in June.
Exceptional Funding Project
Online referral system matching young people without regular status to legal organisations who may be able to support them
The Public Law Project’s (PLP) exceptional funding project is designed to assist people in need of legal advice, assistance or representation with making exceptional funding applications and challenging refusals of funding where appropriate.
Working closely with the Public Law Project, the developers and designers are working on creating an online application form to help clients submit their cases for exceptional funding under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. The aim is to develop an online, efficient, referral system that is user-friendly, quick and easy to use.
Further changes to legal aid – Consultation open until June 4th
Major changes were made to the legal system in England and Wales by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, on the 1st of April 2013. On the 9th of April, the government issued a further consultation for changes to both criminal and civil legal aid. This consultation will close on the 4th of June 2013.
Coram Children’s Legal Centre, The Children’s Society and Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit are working together to raise awareness of this consultation. CCLC have published Transforming Legal Aid, a briefing on the potential impacts of the planned changes to legal aid on children and young people. The briefing includes examples of how children and young people will be affected, the proposed residence test, cuts to legal aid for judicial review cases and reducing the fees paid to solicitors in family cases.
They are encouraging all organisations working with children and young people to respond to the consultation and they are also holding an open meeting on the issues on Friday the 24th of May. See Coram Children’s Legal Centre for more info.
The Public Law Project provides a list of the areas of law that are no longer eligible for legal aid including:
Asylum support (except where accommodation is claimed);
Immigration cases that do not involve detention, domestic violence, human trafficking or the Special Immigration Appeals Commission;
Private family law cases that do not involve issues of domestic violence, child abuse, child protection, forced marriage or where a child is a party to the proceedings.
Paul Hamlyn Foundation publishes new paper – “Routes to Regularisation for people without legal status in the UK”
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation Supported Options Initiative has published a paper that outlines the significant legal routes that young people could use to regularise their immigration status. The Initiative is commissioning occasional expert legal analysis in response to recent changes to legal policy, of which this paper was the first.
Drumming at Undoc Camp
Written by Nadine Finch, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers, she outlines the different barriers, such as lack of finance and quality representation, “which may prevent irregular migrant children from accessing these routes, and discusses possible strategies to ensure that these children do obtain the leave which will protect their human rights.”
The Supported Options Initiative is now working on ways to make key parts of the information in the paper accessible to young people, and support organisations who are not legal experts.
Digital Undoc Report published
Undoc Camp took place at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in London in July 2012 as part of the creative phase of their Supported Options Initiative. The 2-day event brought 100 people together from different professions and backgrounds to tackle the challenges faced by young people and children without regular immigration status in the UK. Since then, we’ve seen three ideas develop into solutions using the web and mobile technology including 2ndFriend and ‘First Start’. To read about their progress so far and activities since Undoc Camp see the ‘Winning ideas take shape…’
Read the full report from On Road: Digital Undoc Report March 2013
By Sarah Cutler, Coordinator, Supported Options Initiative.
Winning Ideas
I’ve been catching up this month with the teams behind the winning ideas from Undoc Camp. As you may have seen on Twitter, 2nd. Friend has had some great opportunities to make contacts and develop their ideas further, including presenting in Parliament for Safer Internet Day 2013 and pitching at the Google Campus for Future Gov and Coadec’s ‘Interactivism // Think Kids’ Pitch Day. Here’s a handout explaining the confidential, anonymous and secure platform.
#SID2013 was great: invitations from @childline and @beatbullying. We are mentioned in @eu_commission press release: europa.eu/rapid/press-re…
— SecondFriend (@Second_Friend) February 5, 2013
First Start have developed some great designs for their website and text messaging service. Now they’re working on their content strategy, deciding which languages and information will be piloted, and producing short videos with the British Red Cross.
Public Law Project who are leading on the Exceptional Funding Project have agreed a work-plan with their team made up of lawyers, web developers and designers, to create the secure, online referral system for matching young people with volunteers who can help them with legal aid.
Undoc Camp Reunion and Report
In the next week or so, we’ll upload the report of the Digital Undoc camp process, led by Nathalie, Alana and the team at On Road. It’s a really useful account of the approach and the feedback from those who attended. On Road have also shared their ideas with us about how we take this work forward in the next funding phase – watch this space!
We’re talking to the winning teams about how to bring Undoc-campers back together again in 2013 – more on this later.
Supported Options Initiative (SOI)
Image from the Life Without Papers blog. Courtesy Len Grant
Earlier in January, SOI launched the blog ‘Life Without Papers’, a visual photography blog that tells the stories of undocumented migrant families and young people in the UK. The stories are gathered by Len Grant and highlight the vulnerability and strength of this community. The blog has also been shortlisted in the online category of the Speaking Together media awards.
We know from the six face-to-face advice projects that we’re funding that things are tough for young people now with cuts to legal aid looming (due to come into force from April 1). Front-line projects are telling us about young people struggling to meet basic needs for clothes, a safe place to sleep and food, as well as realising they can’t get to the next stage of their education because they don’t have papers. Legal advice is critical for these young people.
So, just before Christmas we commissioned a report from leading barrister, Nadine Finch, to clarify whether there are legal routes young people could explore to sort out their immigration status and live legally. The picture is complex, but there are options for some young people, with the right legal advice and enough money to pay the administration fees to the Home Office. We’re now thinking about how we can make this information accessible to young people and their supporters. We’re exploring ways in which social media could provide support as well as looking at how young people can finance their applications. In March, we’ll be getting our grantees together to share tactics about how they support people to access legal representation without getting ripped off or being given bad advice.
PICUM Conference in Brussels
I’m looking forward to going to Brussels at the end of February to present more about the social media aspect of SOI at an international conference on children and families with irregular immigration status, hosted by the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants. I’m hoping to pick up ideas and strategies from other EU member states.
On Twitter
Finally, we’ve been tweeting from @DigitalUndoc about some of the developments for young people in the United States, as President Obama follows up on his commitment to immigration reform. We’re really excited to be welcoming Carlos Saavedra to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in February to speak to young people, advice projects and funders about how young activists in America built a movement for change that has made it to the top of the political agenda.
Second Friend pitches at the Google Campus
On 6 December, Second Friend, winning idea developed at On Road‘s Undoc Camp was pitched at the Google Campus. This ‘Interactivism // Think Kids’ Pitch Day was organised by Google and the NSPCC in partnership with FutureGov and Coadec. The three ideas pitched were shortlisted from Future Gov’s Simple Challenges. This specific challenge asked how technology could help children and young people get the most from the internet whilst staying safe and positive.
Second Friend
Second Friend, pitched by Florian Rathgeber is supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The website is an anonymous and confidential single access point for young people to chat with counsellors from different organisations who can provide a variety of support and advice. It also aims to support young undocumented migrants via the web and SMS text. Unfortunately, it didn’t win resident membership at Google’s tech startup hub but received some great feedback. Here’s FutureGov’s Storify from the day.
The idea that won was Twoten, an online service helping parents and children by guiding and filtering content appropriately and keeping the web safe. The third idea, Digital Disruption, uses three digital tools; visual guidelines, a game and an infographic survey to empower young people to become savvy and use the internet responsibly.
You can try the Second Friend demo here and go through the pitch presentation here. Second Friend is also on Twitter!
Second Friend team at Undoc Camp, run by On Road at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation
Winning ideas in development…
Since Undoc Camp in July this year, the winning teams have been working together and developing their ideas with support from Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Here’s a wee update on each project.
Exceptional Funding Project (previously Migrant Hope)
What is it? A secure, online referral system that helps young people apply for an exceptional funding scheme from April 2013. This website will help young people up to the age of 21 to access advice and support on their individual cases and match them with volunteers to help them apply for legal aid.
The Public Law Project will oversee the development of this project, starting in November 2012.
What is it? A website that provides anonymous mentoring for young people in need of support. It is a secure and confidential communication channel that connects users with volunteers or organisations that can provide advice. This month, the idea was presented to the Google UK Youth and Tech Summit in London and at the Safer Internet Forum in Brussels as part of the ‘Better Internet for Children Coalition’ workshop, where it received positive feedback. You follow Second Friend on Twitter.
On Road Media will host the grant for the team of developers and designers who are working on the concept.
First Start (previously First Help)
What is it? A website for young migrants who are finding their feet in the UK. Users can receive information about the website via mobile text message, in their own language. The website, currently in development, provides information for the young person about the services in their area. It has videos of migrants speaking about their experiences when they first came to the UK and visiting local support services, shops, parks, and post offices, encouraging the user to get to know their area.
Three organisations are working in partnership on this project, which is currently in development: Coventry Law Centre, Islington Law Centre and Plymouth Red Cross.
We’ll keep you posted as these projects develop!
Film: Behind the scenes at Undoc Camp
We hope that you managed to catch the article in the METRO last week about Undoc Camp but if film is more your thing, please have a look at this and share. Back in July we invited a film crew to Undoc Camp to capture some of the goings-on and here are the results. Enjoy!
