Approximately 1 in 10 children in care in the UK is not a British citizen. Many need legal advice & support to secure their immigration status &/or British citizenship.

Central England Law Centre, MiCLU & Social Workers Without Borders are offering this training to local authority staff working with children in care, care leavers, &/or children in need from migrant backgrounds.

CELC & MiCLU are part of the Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) UK partnership of organisations providing free legal representation for child citizenship applications.

In the training, we will discuss:

• The importance of identifying when children may have an immigration/citizenship issue
• The benefits of early resolution of immigration/citizenship issues for children & local authorities
• When & why specialist legal advice is needed
• Some of the routes to securing immigration status/British citizenship
• Local authorities’ duties & how to address immigration/citizenship through care/pathway plans, looked after child reviews, child in need assessments etc
• Other related issues of interest to participants, time permitting

[Note: this session will not focus on asylum issues, but we will cover some issues that affect refugee children]

Registration page: Children’s immigration & citizenship routes Tickets, Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 2:00 PM | Eventbrite

About the trainers

Alice Winstanley is a barrister at Central England Law Centre (CELC) & has been the Policy Lead for CELC’s Child Citizenship Project for the past year. Her practice covers asylum, citizenship & human rights-related immigration cases. She previously worked as the UASC Policy Officer at the West Midlands Strategic Migration Partnership.

Rebecca Flint is a supervising solicitor with the KIND UK project & is based at the MiCLU project at Islington Law Centre. She has worked in immigration law since 2010, in both private practice & the charity sector. She specialises in complex cases for minors which at present include issues with regards to trafficking, criminal offending & citizenship.

Ben Feder is the Head of Direct Work at Social Workers Without Borders (SWWB). He is a registered social worker with over 15 years’ experience working alongside marginalised children & young people, including as a statutory social worker, a children’s rights advocate & a specialist caseworker with separated young people seeking asylum. Alongside his SWWB role, he is the asylum & immigration practice lead within a local authority leaving care service. He delivers training & guest lectures on social work practice with separated children and other care experienced young people with unresolved immigration status.

Central England Law Centre (CELC) provides free specialist legal advice in the following areas of social welfare law: Immigration & Asylum; Child & Family; Employment; Health & Social Care; Housing; Welfare Benefits; & Public Law. Through our Child Citizenship Project, we supervise lawyers at corporate law firms & a law clinic at Birmingham City University in making citizenship applications for children. https://www.centralenglandlc.org.uk/

The Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit (MiCLU) at Islington Law Centre provides specialist representation and support to young refugees & migrants, and to challenge the injustices they face. As part of KIND UK, it supervises lawyers at corporate law firms in making children’s immigration & citizenship applications. https://miclu.org/

Social Workers Without Borders (SWWB) provides expert independent social work evidence to assist immigration & asylum decision making and works collaboratively across the social work & immigration sectors to promote best practice with children, families & adults impacted by immigration policy & border controls. Its work is organised into three strands: 1) Direct work – carrying out independent social work reports for immigration proceedings 2) Campaigns at the intersection of social work practice & immigration policy 3) Education for students, social workers & other professionals. www.socialworkerswithoutborders.org