Written evidence submitted by Children and Families Across Borders (CFAB)

Submission to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry on the impact of COVID-19 on the charity sector

Executive Summary

1. Children and Families Across Borders (CFAB) protects and reunites children with their families in 130 countries around the world.  COVID-19 not only impacts our ability to deliver core services but it also will affect our long-term sustainability due to the impact on income. 
2. We expect at least a 50% decrease in fundraising income this year, largely due to the cancellation of our fundraising events. 
3. CFAB staff have adapted quickly to social distancing measures, however these are having an impact on our ability to provide some of our crucial services and on the wellbeing of staff. 
4. We are grateful that the Government has recognised the needs of the charity sector through the Chancellor’s announcement for support, however we have concerns about its accessibility and its limitations.

About CFAB

CFAB supports children on the move between the UK and other countries, and children who are separated from their family in another country.

Formed to help with the refugee crisis in the aftermath of the second world war, we have 65 years’ experience in international child protection. In the last five years alone we have helped over 10,000 children moving to and from the UK and the annual demand for our services has nearly doubled in that time.

The complexities of migration and international separation can make many of these children particularly hard to support and particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. We ensure that children in these circumstances enjoy the same care, protection and right to a family life as we would want for any child.

What we do

CFAB is the only UK charity with an inter-country social work team. Our qualified social workers and specially trained case workers:

• manage children’s cases referred to us by other charities, social service providers, government agencies, international partners and individuals 
• make sure all options for a child’s long term care are thoroughly assessed, that their views are listened to, and that they get the right long-term support
• run the UK’s only free professional Advice Line on international children and family cases
• carry out training and awareness-raising work in the UK – helping professionals recognise and deal with situations in which children from overseas are at risk
• improve practice in inter-country social work through policy work and through training and exchanges with partners and governments overseas.
• provide dedicated post-placement support to families who have been reunited in the UK across international borders, via Dublin III or other immigration routes

Impact of Coronavirus/COVID-19 on CFAB

The impact of COVID-19 on our beneficiaries is potentially drastic and the threat to the future of our vital services is concerning. However, as a resilient charity, we are continuing our services to ensure that no-one is left isolated, forgotten or exposed to risks. CFAB staff are currently working remotely, using the technology we have invested in to ensure that our unique services remain available. There are a number of impacts on our charity, which relate to both our current and future finances, but also the resulting impact on our beneficiaries and our capacity to continue our work to support them. 

Impact on our families: Whilst the coronavirus emergency affects us all, the refugee and asylum-seeking families we support are particularly struggling. English is not their first language, and they struggle to register at the NHS let alone understand the daily coronavirus updates.  We are providing translations of information from the government on preventing the spread of the virus and what to do if they get ill, making referrals to food banks, and helping with online benefit applications.

Impact on our services: CFAB provides a range of services which rely on in-person interaction with children, families and carers in order to make crucial decisions and provide expert advice about a child’s care and wellbeing. We must provide these services to ensure children are safely reunited with family.  This includes a thorough assessment of the family member, including a physical inspection of their home, which we are currently unable to complete in some partner countries. The checking of criminal records often requires fingerprints or in-person visits to offices, which are unable to happen in lock down.  These services provide crucial information about a potential caregiver’s ability.  Consequently, many vulnerable children will remain separated from their families for longer periods of time.

Like many charities, our work has not stopped. We continue to receive a steady number of calls on our free advice line, which at any one time is manned by a single member of the Social Work Team, with a backup member of staff in case more than one call comes in at the same time.  Local authority social workers continue to work and rely on us as a critical resource and source of knowledge to allow them to make decisions with regards to cases with an international aspect. 

Impact on our staff: As a small charity which maximises the proportion of spend going to our service users, the majority of staff did not have CFAB laptops to work from home.  We have only been able to continue our operations due to the generous emergency donation of some laptops from our trustees and through staff volunteering to use their personal computers for work (thus requiring them to handover admin rights to our software team to ensure adequate data protection measures).  Half of our staff are vulnerable themselves, with underlying health conditions, or are single parents – making the present pandemic extraordinarily difficult for them.  Given the international nature of our work, more than half of our staff have close family in other countries – so the psychological impact of not being able to help them is detrimental to their mental health.  Like many small charities, we do not have an Employee Assistance Programme and charities will struggle to support staff through the collective trauma of the pandemic.

In addition, despite vacating our offices on 17 March 2020, we have had ongoing communication with our building management agents to discuss the possibility of making some concession towards us in respect of rent and service charge for this period. We have explained that we are unable to use the office due to the Government’s exhortation to work from home wherever possible, and that the current situation has severely affected our income due to the cancellation of our fundraising activities, reduction in overall donations and the costs involved in setting up all staff members to work from home. As our landlord, we will be approaching the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government with the same request and, in such future communication, we will make reference to the Government’s confirmed policy to support businesses during this difficult time, in particular charities supporting vulnerable people such as the displaced children whom we strive to protect.

Impact on our funding: Like many small charities, CFAB struggles to maintain a balanced budget year on year.  We regularly rely on trusts and donors (representing half of our income) to keep our doors open.  However, with COVID-19 we expect at least a 50% decrease in fundraising income this year, largely due to the cancellation of our fundraising events.  This may worsen in time as more trusts and donors divert their regular donations to other coronavirus frontline appeals. 

CFAB’S Role during COVID-19

In our expert capacity as the only UK charity with an inter-country social work team, we have issued Emergency Interim Guidance[1] which sets out principles to govern practice in these unprecedented times.  This guidance is intended for social workers to help them ensure that children’s safety continues to be at the forefront during these times. It specifically relates to the assessment of parents or kinship carers (also known as friends and family carers) abroad where face to face visits cannot be conducted. Overall, our advice is that the use of technology can greatly expedite the work of social workers, particularly as a viability assessment to determine whether a potential carer should be ruled out or more thoroughly assessed at a later date, but that a face to face visit should always be conducted before a final decision is made to place a child with the carer. The benefit to the child in using remote access technologies must be weighed against the risk the technology poses. The coronavirus pandemic means that movements across borders are more restricted than they would usually be, therefore overseas assessments and placements will need to be delayed or reconsidered anyway.

Post Placement Support

For over a year, CFAB has been offering Post Placement Support to unaccompanied children arriving, often from refugee camps in Greece and France, to live with relatives in the UK. These children have complex needs which places enormous pressure on the families with whom they come to live; families who are often already struggling themselves, who receive little or no statutory support and who therefore experience a high rate of family breakdown. Now, in these difficult and confusing times, these families need our support more than ever.

During the COVID-19 crisis, our Post Placement Support Social Worker will continue to work across the UK. Currently working remotely, she uses a dedicated mobile phone and laptop from which she can safely access CFAB’s secure database, ensuring records are kept up to date. She uses telephone, instant messaging (including WhatsApp), text, and email to stay in touch with and support beneficiaries, using telephone interpreters where necessary. 

Government Support

We appreciate that the Government has now announced a package of support for the charity sector and we are grateful for the recognition of the importance of charities which work with vulnerable people continuing to provide their services. We welcome the announcement of the £360 million to be directly allocated by government departments to charities providing key services and supporting vulnerable people during the crisis. Whilst we fall under this description we have concerns that we, and other similar charities, may be ineligible as a result of being unable to offer a COVID-19 specific response. Whilst we recognise that there are charities in frontline COVID-19 response roles that rightly deserve access to this funding, we hope that the allocation process recognises the diversity and interconnectivity of the sector and the necessity for our services to continue. We call for greater clarity on the eligibility criteria for this funding and an indication of the prioritisation principles.

Whilst this support package represents a welcome start to addressing the unique and complex challenges that the charity sector is facing, we are concerned that it does not go far enough to fill the loss that many charities will experience. Given that the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) estimated that charities will miss out on £4.3 billion income in the space of 12 weeks[2] (although it is thought that this could be much higher), we fear that the Government support will not prevent the collapse of a number of charities which are currently continuing to provide services on reduced income. Ultimately, our concern is for the residual impact that this may have on children’s charities (and the children they protect) and their capacity to continue operating, some of which do so in co-operation with us at CFAB.