Restoring Futures Programme

The Helen Bamber Foundation Group's Restoring Futures Programme brings together specialist legal, therapeutic and advocacy expertise to support children and young people affected by trauma who are seeking protection in the UK. As well as providing direct frontline work to hundreds of young clients - including legal representation and trauma-informed therapy - the RFP improves practice by providing training and guidance to other practitioners; and drives systemic change on issues including age disputes, asylum decision-making and family reunion, including through co-chairing the Refugee and Migrant Children's Consortium, a coalition of over 100 NGOs.  

HBF and Asylum Aid, members of the HBF Group, both hold considerable expertise of working with, and fighting for the rights of, children and young people affected by trauma. We support people through their journey to claim asylum or other forms of protection within the United Kingdom.  

Asylum Aid’s dedicated specialist Children and Young People team provides expert legal advice and representation to support clients with their claims for asylum and other forms of legal protection. In 2025 the team supported 58 young people (aged 18-25) and 48 children, the youngest of whom was 7 years old. Asylum Aid caseworkers have extensive experience of representing unaccompanied children seeking asylum; children living in care or with extended families and young people subject to age disputes. Caseworkers also have experience of undertaking family reunion applications for young people to be reunited with their parents or siblings.  

HBF provides support to clients using the Model of Integrated Care (MOIC) and provided trauma-informed evidence-based therapy and holistic casework services to 48 young people in 2025. As well as working directly with young people, HBF has experience of delivering therapeutic care to young people within its key partnerships, including at Young Roots, Hummingbird and the British Red Cross. By embedding HBF clinical psychologists into local casework organisations, HBF is able to deliver therapy directly to young people in their community, meeting children where they are to make therapy as accessible as possible.

Drawing on the evidence from frontline work, the HBF group advocates for systemic change to improve the treatment of young people, focussing in particular on the issues of age disputes, decision-making on children’s claims in the asylum and trafficking systems, and family reunion. 

HBF co-chairs the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium (RMCC), a coalition of over 100 NGOs working collaboratively to ensure that the rights and needs of refugee and migrant children and young people are promoted and protected. RMCC members used their combined expertise, evidence and strong united voice to deliver meaningful change to law, policy and practice that improves the asylum, immigration, nationality and trafficking systems and ensures that all children and young people receive the care and support they need. The RMCC provides joint evidence and recommendations to central government through joint letters, consultation responses, select committee inquiries, briefings and direct engagement with parliamentarians. The Consortium regularly engages with ministers, their advisors and civil servants, particularly in the Home Office, Department for Education and Ministry of Justice, and advocates on children’s rights in relation to Bills in Parliament. Recent successes include successfully campaigning for changes to the Home Office’s policy of treating children seeking asylum as adults based on a visual age assessment; and commitments to specific pathways to settlement for unaccompanied children seeking asylum and children in care. Please read on for more information about our research into the situation facing young migrants and refugees seeking protection in the UK.