Methodology for the assessment of the best interests of the child for recently arrived unaccompanied refugee minors

This chapter discusses the development of a methodology for the assessments of the best interests of recently arrived unaccompanied minor refugees. The assessment reports provide evidence and child rights-based information to the migration authorities, which should be taken into account when the asylum decision is made. The Study Centre had been mainly practising BIC assessments with refugee children who had been residing in the Netherlands for a long time. The chapter describes why it is necessary to perform a best interests of the child (BIC) assessment for unaccompanied minors in migration procedures and how those BIC assessments are performed by the Study Centre for Children, Migration and Law (Study Centre). It explains how the BIC assessments are performed by the Study Centre and how this methodology was adapted to the situation of recently arrived refugee children. With the case of Elsa, the chapter illustrates how the adapted methodology for recently arrived refugee children is practised