Another country

Little Ayak was at home with her mother in southern Sudan when government soldiers came to take away her father, who was a teacher, accusing him of involvement with the rebel army. Her mother and the children fled for their lives. They went on foot, walking by night and eating wild foods on the way, to a neighbouring country. There, relatives helped them get a flight to England, where they applied for asylum. Now Ayak, aged five, lives with her mother and three brothers and sisters in the London borough of Haringey. Separated from their wider family, grieving for their missing father, the family lives on little money in a tiny rented flat while waiting to hear their fate from the Home Office.

Asylum seekers were a recurrent theme in Britain's recent general election, as targets for resentment from both main parties. But most of the world's 12 million refugees counted by the UN High Commission for Refugees live in other poor countries. Despite the large amounts of comment they attract, last year only 76,040 asylum applications were made in Britain. The majority come from countries in turmoil - Iraq, Sri Lanka, former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

Need for education

Arriving in Britain doesn't necessarily mean an end to families' problems. Without the English language, sufficient money, or understanding of the system, many are ill-placed to get even their basic requirements met. Karen Jacob works as a translator for Carila, a Latin American welfare group offering Spanish speakers help with housing, health and education.

'My experience is that people are very keen for their children to get to the "nurseria",' she says, 'particularly as they've lost all sorts of support systems they might have had. But who's telling them about these things, who's encouraging them to go? People have the view that asylum seekers will be gone in three or four months, but some wait for years to have their cases sorted out.'

Typically, families' most pressing and urgent needs are for help with form-filling and bureaucracy. Health needs are also high on the agenda. Then come education and more general questions of welfare. Sue Barley is refugee support teacher in the London borough of Waltham Forest, working at Newport Infants and Juniors schools supporting children from Somalia, Kosovo, Colombia and Algeria, among other countries. About 50 per cent of the infant school's pupils are either refugees or asylum seekers waiting to hear if they have been granted refugee status. However, many refugee children are stuck at home, she says. 'Some have been out of education for months if not years.' Sue encourages mothers to bring their toddlers to a toy library for under-threes held at the school, where she can get to know them and ease the transition into nursery or reception, through a translator if necessary. Interpreters are a vital resource -one reason older children miss school is that parents are using them as translators at the doctor's surgery or housing department. Children tend to acquire the host country's language much faster than their parents. Sue's school also runs a popular English class for parents.

Painful memories

Some children of asylum seekers need more specialist help. The folder of drawings kept at the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture makes painful viewing. 'This is S and his dad running out of the burning house,' one is captioned. The drawing is by a very young child, showing a simple house with the sun fierce above it and an adult with a child in his arms, running for their lives. Another child forced to witness his father being tortured shows a man being attacked by others; in the background, a figure cowers under a bed. A five-year-old girl who as a toddler was present while her mother was raped depicts bomber planes shaped like penises.

Sheila Melzac is principal child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Foundation. Traumatised adults may be unable to function effectively as parents, she says, so that even very young children become 'parentified' and feel responsible for their parents. 'We work with parents and children together, trying to build the relationship. Quite commonly, a very disturbed mother comes with an agitated under-five who's rushing about all over the place. Once the therapist starts listening to the mother, you often see the child calm down.'

Children of asylum seekers may be alone with their disturbing memories, she points out. The adults may be too overwhelmed to help, or may deny the child's reality altogether because it is too painful. 'Very often in the heat of war, violence, running away and exile, people don't have time to explain to children what's going on. Children, like their parents, need time and space to communicate their feelings, and someone who can listen to them.'

Early years workers may feel overwhelmed themselves, when contemplating what families have been through. 'Adults find it hard to acknowledge that little children have held guns, seen murder, seen rape,' says Sheila. 'But early years workers do have the skills required, in my opinion - communicating through play with children, listening to them, making books about themselves that they can keep and giving them the opportunity to express their emotions.'

The Government's policy of dispersing asylum seekers around the country makes it more pressing that early years workers in all parts of the country think about how to work with refugee children. The following resources can help them do just that.

* In Safe Hands, by the Save the Children Fund, is a training pack costing 20 plus p&p. Contact Save the Children Publications c/o Plymbridge Distributors Ltd, Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY (tel 01752 202 301).

* The Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture (0207 813 777) holds a weekly open forum in London for those working with refugee children.