Jo’s Poster Plight

Jo Wilding’s winning poster. Click to enlarge.

University of Brighton Research Fellow Jo Wilding has won the university’s Annual Research Poster Competition with her entry highlighting the plight of unaccompanied children seeking asylum in England. 

The poster is based on research carried out by Jo and Professor Marie-Benedicte’ Dembour through the university’s Centre for Research on Management and Employment (CROME), about the situation of unaccompanied children seeking asylum and the extent to which the UK Government implements their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Jo’s design was chosen first in the staff category. The competition also holds a student category and all together a total of fifty-two entries were entered- a record for the competition!

Jo received her accolade as part of the Celebration of Research event, held at the university, where ‘Rising Stars’ grants were also awarded along with a selection of presentations by various research groups.

The event was hosted by the ever charismatic Head of CROME, Professor Jackie O’Reilly a key figure in the delivery of another CROME research project, the European wide STYLE, Strategic Transitions for Youth Labour in Europe.

Jo and Marie’s research was funded by the EU as part of a comparative study (known as MinAs), with partners in France, Austria and Slovenia, from July 2014 to December 2015 – the report is on the project page of the CROME website.

The poster itself shows the map of England with the data from 150 Freedom of Information requests plotted onto it, which revealed that seven out of the 150 local authority Children’s Services Departments in England look after 43% of all unaccompanied children.

It also has a graph compiled by Kent County Council showing their intake of children rising to crisis point, together with quotations from some of the interviewees describing the impact of that concentration on them / the children they look after.

A link to the CROME MinAs page can be found here