Podcast: Refugee Week special

In the latest episode of The Social Work Community Podcast, recorded for Refugee Week (16-22 June 2025), I speak to specialist social workers Zahraa Adam and Aimee Hinton about their work with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

Zahraa and Aimee have worked with unaccompanied children for 10 years and have a wealth of experience in this specialism. Both are national social work award winners and Aimee holds a British Empire Medal for her contribution to social work.

They are also age assessors and explain how this assessment is carried out. (This episode was recorded before the government gave its strong backing to the Home Office’s National Age Assessment Board, which the British Association of Social Workers seeks to abolish.)

The senior social workers share stories about the children they support, how negative media coverage of asylum seekers affects the children, why they love their jobs so much and why unaccompanied young people deserve the same access to resources that other looked after children get.

You can listen to the episode here:
Listen to “Refugee Week Special” on Spreaker.
Read the transcript.

If you are interested in learning more about working with UASC, register now for the Community Care Inform webinar on ‘Trauma-informed practice with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children’, by Dr Wuraola Bolaji, a psychoanalytically trained doctor of social work, a trauma-informed practitioner, educator and thought leader. The webinar takes place on 2 July 2025 at 10.30am.