Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:17 pm on 19 June 2018.
Joyce Watson raises a number of very important issues. As I've said, we've had five sessions across Wales, and nearly 100 social workers and advocates have been trained in age assessment of children and young people, so that we do not have some of the miscarriages of justice that we have seen in the system. We'll be publishing a series of information and advice resources that will assist social workers to support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people, to advise on current and potential foster carers, and to advise the children and young people themselves. This meets the commitment to produce that information in the UK Government four-nation safeguarding strategy for unaccompanied asylum-seeker children, to which the Welsh Government has contributed. I know the Member has a real concern around the modern slavery issue here, as well as people particularly fleeing sexual violence, who are often captured by people who are very exploitative in that regard.
We funded a series of focus groups with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people, to understand more about their views and experiences of the services they've received in Wales. As I said earlier to John Griffiths, that report will be published soon, and will help inform our future work, including the final refugees and asylum seekers delivery plan. We've also supported the delivery of training to current and future foster carers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, as we seek to ensure that children have the best possible experience. I share Joyce Watson's horror at some of the scenes that we saw in the United States. We've been working very hard to ensure that the UK takes very seriously that, as part of the Brexit process, we stay part of the protocols in Europe that allow family reunification, because that is a very significant part of what our membership of the European Union has brought, and I really, very much, want to keep hold of that, if at all possible.