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This paper considers what safety, belonging and success mean to children and young people who seek asylum alone within richer nations. These three elements are conceptualised, taking account of journeys away from their countries of origin towards a sense of 'home' in a new country. The conceptual map is then used to frame existing research to establish what is known, and what needs to be further examined in understanding the ways in which the three elements are manifest when permanent resettlement, temporary admission and enforced return are all possible outcomes of an asylum claim. The paper concludes that the state of knowledge is currently uncertain in relation to each element, with some good evidence of safety and belonging in the context of permanent resettlement and relatively poor understanding of success when children and young people are forced to return away from the country of asylum.

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Unaccompanied children and young people seeking sanctuary as political refugees are increasingly visible within many industrialized nations, where several studies confirm their vulnerability and needs. These studies also highlight what appears to be the poor quality of social work services and practices that these minors encounter. This paper examines some of the details contained in such reports of deficiency and seeks to place them within a more optimistic appraisal of social work practice. Based on a small research study, it suggests that resettlement for unaccompanied minors is complex and contains different types of loss as well as gain. It also asserts that practice by some social workers shows they have a grasp of this complexity as they offer practical assistance, therapeutic care and companionship to the young people to help them resettle in new environments.

There is little in the existing literature in refugee studies, foster care and the anthropology of food about the ways refugee and asylum seeking children regard food. This piece reports on two initiatives that delineate ways children seeking asylum and their carers understand food. The first is a research study examining unaccompanied asylum seeking children's perception of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, within which they focus on food and survival after arrival in the UK. The second, based on interviews with foster carers, is a practice orientated enquiry about food and its meaning in foster care. The findings suggest that food is related to many aspects of finding sanctuary, negotiating belonging within the foster family, and can powerfully evoke being at 'home' in a new land.

This paper considers how asylum seeking girls in residential care in Finland construct their everyday lives while waiting for asylum outcomes. These girls, from various African countries, are shown to experience waiting as both debilitating and productive. First, our findings confirm the established picture of asylum seeking young people being in limbo, unable to influence the resolution of their claims. Second, we explore more hopeful ways in which they wait. We emphasise the complex responses and relationships they build in waiting times with each other and their carers. We suggest that waiting is not just 'dead' time, but is also lively in periods of uncertainty.

A B S T R AC TUnaccompanied minors looking for asylum in industrialized nations come with a host of psychosocial needs associated with separation and settlement. They are also resourceful, and willing to make the best of themselves in their new environments. This paper reviews literature concerning vulnerability and resilience that has emerged from refugee related studies, and those from social work with children looked after by local authorities. In combining these two areas of enquiry, the paper tests the messages they contain in reference to the work of a young asylum seekers project run in the United Kingdom. It confirms the view that unaccompanied minors are children first and foremost, exhibiting understandable vulnerabilities associated with separation and trauma, as well as being carriers of capacities that can help them to recover and settle after arrival. In this paper, it is proposed that promoting psychosocial well-being for unaccompanied minors involves entering the young people's inner and outer worlds with therapeutic care, to aid the processes of selfrecovery. It also involves finding ways to regenerate a lost sense of belonging and of being in charge of their lives. Examples from the project's work with the young people are used to illustrate the complexity of helping them find a sense of home within their new territories.Promoting psychosocial well-being in unaccompanied young asylum seekers R Kohli and R Mather Work 2003, 8, pp 201-212 Child and Family Social