CLOSING A
PROTECTION GAP
TRAINING SEMINAR:
CORE STANDARDS
FOR GUARDIANS OF
SEPARATED
CHILDREN IN
EUROPE
PROGRAMME
23 JANUARY 2012
Closing a Protection Gap Training Seminar:
Core Standards for Guardians of Separated Children in Europe
TIME
SEMINAR
SPEAKER
10.00am -10.20am
Introduction: Core Standards for Guardians of
Separated Children in Europe: An Overview,
Core Standards: Towards Implementation,
Children’s Voices
Samantha Arnold
Children’s and Young Persons’
Officer
Irish Refugee Council
10.20am - 10.40 am
Voluntary Care & the Voice of Children
Seeking Asylum in Ireland: A Legal
Practitioner’s Perspective
Jacqueline Kelly
Senior Solicitor
Irish Refugee Council
11.00am - 11.30am
Coffee Break
11.30am - 1.00pm
Plenary
1.00pm - 1.15pm
Introduction from Chair
Sue Conlan
CEO
Irish Refugee Council
Children in the asylum process: A family law
perspective
Dr. Fergus Ryan
Lecturer
Department of Law
DIT
The concept of ‘guardian’ in relation to
separated migrant children: traversing the
migration and child welfare spectrum
Dr. Deirdre Horgan
Lecturer in Social Policy
UCC
The role of guardians in meeting the
developmental needs of separated young
people
Dr. Muireann Ní Raghallaigh
Lecturer
School of Applied Social
Science UCD
Questions and Answers
1.15pm - 2.15pm
2.15pm - 3.30pm
LUNCH
The Care of Separated Children in Ireland:
Policy and Practice
- Durable Solutions: Family links,
reunification, integration and return
- Protection Risks: Human trafficking
and child abuse
Samantha Arnold, IRC
Children’s and Young Persons’
Officer
Irish Refugee Council
Determining the Best Interests of the Child &
Ensuring the Right of the Child to be Heard
Carl Grainger
Protection Associate
UNHCR
Protection for separated children in Ireland:
How to support a separated child through the
asylum process
Albert Llussà I Torra
Solicitor
Daly, Crowley, Lynch & Morris
3.30pm - 4.00pm
Feedback
Samantha Arnold
Children’s and Young Persons’
Officer
Irish Refugee Council
4.00pm
Closing remarks
Sue Conlan
Closing a Protection Gap Training Seminar:
Core Standards for Guardians of Separated Children in Europe
SPEAKERS’ BIOGRAPHIES
Sue Conlan
Chair
Sue is a law graduate from the UK who also holds an LLM in Welfare Law. Having initially
worked for an NGO in the field of anti-racism (training and education), she has specialised in
immigration and asylum for the last 24 years, both in NGOs and private legal practice
(predominantly publicly-funded). She was recognised in the UK as a leading lawyer in
immigration and asylum (Chambers Guide to the UK Legal Profession). In addition to legal
practice, she also worked as a trainer and consultant, including for Oxford University’s Centre
on Migration Policy and Society and the Open University. She has been the CEO of the Irish
Refugee Council since February 2010.
Samantha Arnold
‘Core Standards for Guardians of Separated Children in Europe: An Overview’
Samantha has been working with the IRC since January 2010 as the Separated Children’s
Officer. Other work experience has included working with children in crisis in the residential
setting at KidsPeace in Upstate New York and teaching English as a foreign language in South
Korea. Samantha was awarded a BA in Spanish and Hispanic Studies and Latin American
Studies by Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York, an MA in International
Relations by Dublin City University and recently completed an LLM by Research at University
College Cork. The title of her research is ‘Burden of Proof: Qualification as a Sexual Minority
Refugee in the United Kingdom and Ireland’. Her report, ‘Closing the Protection Gap: Irish
Report’, focusing on the needs of separated children, was published by the IRC in February
2011. She took on the revised post of Children’s and Young Person’s Officer in June 2011.
Dr. Deirdre Horgan
‘The concept of ‘guardian’ in relation to separated migrant children: traversing the migration and
child welfare spectrum’
Dr. Deirdre Horgan is a lecturer in Social Policy and Deputy Director of the BA (Childhood and
Early Years) at UCC. With research interests in childhood, child protection and children’s rights,
in recent years she, along with colleagues in the School of Applied Social Studies, has been
involved in funded research on policy and practice responses to child migration and trafficking
in Ireland, including projects on the role of the National Action Plans on Human Trafficking. She
is currently undertaking research on the safe care of trafficked children in Ireland for the
Children’s Rights Alliance. She was one of the organisers of an Irish Aid funded international
conference on Early Childhood in Developing World Contexts which was held at UCC last year
and from which an edited book on issues related to Early Childhood in the Global South is being
produced. She has presented at conferences in Ireland and Europe on issues relating to child
protection, child migration, trafficking policy and practice in Ireland.
Closing a Protection Gap Training Seminar:
Core Standards for Guardians of Separated Children in Europe
Jacqueline Kelly
‘Voluntary Care & the Voice of Children Seeking Asylum in Ireland: A legal Practitioner’s
Perspective’
Jacqueline holds a B.A. from the University of Dublin, Trinity College, an LLM from the Irish
Centre for Human Rights in Galway and was admitted to the roll of solicitors in 2005. She also
holds a diploma in family law and a certificate in mental health law from the Law Society of
Ireland and completed training as a Mediator with the Dublin Solicitors Bar
Association. Jacqueline is joint national coordinator of the European Legal Network of Asylum
Lawyers and co-founder of the Refugee and Immigration Practitioners’ Network. Prior to
qualifying as a solicitor, Jacqueline joined the Refugee Legal Service (Legal Aid Board) in 2001
as a caseworker. On qualification, she returned to practice as a solicitor with the Refugee Legal
Service, where she represented clients at all stages of the asylum process and in judicial review
proceedings. She developed a particular interest in cases relating to the Dublin II Regulation,
vulnerable asylum seekers and detention. Since 2008 she has worked primarily in the area of
family and child care law, establishing onsite offices for the provision of legal services within the
Dublin District Court in Dolphin House and representing clients before those Courts.
Albert Llussà I Torra
‘Protection for separated children in Ireland: How to support a separated child through the asylum
process’
Albert Llussà i Torra, Solicitor, LLM in International Human Rights Law (NUI Galway). From
2001 to 2005 he worked with the Refugee Legal Service (Legal Aid Board), working mostly with
separated children. From 2005 to date he has been working at Daly Lynch Crowe & Morris
Solicitors (Dublin) in the areas of asylum and refugee law, general immigration law, and
representing persons involuntarily detained under the Mental Health Act 2001. He represents a
significant number of separated children and “aged-out minors” seeking international
protection.
Carl Grainger
‘Determining the Best Interests of the Child & Ensuring the Right of the Child to be Heard’
Carl is the protection associate in UNHCR’s Dublin office. He was educated at Durham
University, University College London and King’s Inns. Before joining UNHCR, Carl worked as a
High Court judicial fellow, spending much of his time on asylum and immigration matters. Prior
to this he held positions at UCD Law School and the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Closing a Protection Gap Training Seminar:
Core Standards for Guardians of Separated Children in Europe
Dr. Muireann Ní Raghallaigh
'The role of guardians in meeting the developmental needs of separated young people'
Upon qualifying as a social worker Muireann Ní Raghallaigh worked with the HSE Team for
Separated Children Seeking Asylum where she developed a keen interest in issues related to
and affecting asylum seekers and refugees. Muireann subsequently undertook her Ph.D
research in Trinity College Dublin. Her Ph.D., which was partly funded by the National
Children’s Office, was a qualitative study of the experiences of unaccompanied minors living in
Ireland. It focused in particular on the coping strategies used by these young people. Since
completion of her thesis Muireann has work part time in academia and part time in social work
practice. She has served as Acting Director of the Bachelor of Social Studies Degree Programme
in Trinity and has lectured and supervised both undergraduate and postgraduate students. She
has also worked as a research fellow with the Trinity Immigration Initiative and as a lecturer in
social care in the Dublin Institute of Technology. From 2007 onwards Muireann has worked, on
a part time basis, as a Family Worker with the Daughters of Charity Child and Family Services.
She began working on a full time basis in UCD in September 2008 and continues to undertake
sessional work in Cherry Orchard Family Centre.
Dr. Fergus Ryan
'Children in the asylum process: A family law perspective'
Dr. Fergus Ryan, a graduate and former scholar of Trinity College, Dublin, is a lecturer in law at
the Dublin Institute of Technology. From September 2003 to December 2009 he served as
acting Head of the DIT's Department of Law, overseeing (amongst other things) the introduction
of two new degree programmes and one Masters programme and the development
of approximately 11 new legal modules. From 2002-5, Fergus served as a visiting lecturer at the
School of Law, Trinity College, Dublin, teaching Family Law. He has also served as a visiting
lecturer at the Law Society of Ireland and at the Centre for Equality Studies at UCD, and is an
external examiner at WIT and Dublin Business School. Additionally, since 2001, Fergus has
served as internship director for the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Dublin summer programme.
He is the author of several books and chapters in books including Constitutional Law (Thomson
Round Hall, 2008), now in its second edition, and Contract Law, (Thomson Round Hall, 2006),
and has published in several leading academic journals. He is co-author (with Dug Cubie) of
Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Law in Ireland, Cases and Materials (Thomson Round
Hall, 2004) and was a co-contributor to Shannon (ed.) Family Law Practitioner, (Round Hall,
2000). Additionally, Fergus is the co-author of two reports commissioned by the Irish Human
Rights Commission: Walsh and Ryan, The Rights of De Facto Couples (2006) and Ryan and
Conroy, Observations on the Criminal Law (Trafficking and Sexual Offences) Bill 2006 (2007).
In 2002, he also authored a report on the Nullity of Marriage in Northern Ireland for the
Northern Ireland Law Reform Advisory Committee. Recently, he completed a report for the Gay
and Lesbian Equality Network entitled Civil Partnership: Your Questions Answered (GLEN,
2009).
A former President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers, Fergus is currently Chairperson of
One Family, a national charity providing support to one-parent families. A regular speaker at
national and international conferences, Fergus is a frequent contributor of legal opinion on Irish
radio and television, including RTE Radio 1 and Newstalk FM.