This chapter describes the practical reality of day-to-day life for refugee children and for those working for them in a single region of England. It is based around on-the-ground reportage and on interviews with young people, with practitioners working in the voluntary and public sectors and with the staff at an independent school which has welcomed a number of recent refugee girls from Syria. It describes some of the issues which arise from a political narrative which tends to characterise young refugees’ journeys as either ‘triumph’ or ‘tragedy,’ with little in-between.

DOI: 10.4324/9780429263811-12

ISBN: 9780429263811