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In recent years, unaccompanied children on the move have featured prominently in global politics, with significant implications for the children themselves, but also for the potential host countries. The number of first- time child asylum applicants (both unaccompanied and with their families) in the EU rose from 64,330 in 2011 to 386,415 in 2016 (Eurostat, 2021). The number of unaccompanied child asylum applications in the EU also increased, from 11,690 in 2011 to 63,250 in 2016, with a 2015 peak of 95,205 unaccompanied children applying for asylum in the EU, including 3,255 in the UK (Eurostat, 2021b). In Europe in 2016, around one third (390,770) of asylum applications lodged were for children, with the UK receiving a relatively small number (9,200) of those applications compared to Germany, where two thirds (261,300) of the children applied (UNHCR et al, 2017). However, while in other European countries the 2015 peak has not been superseded, the UK saw higher numbers in 2019, when it received 3,755 asylum applications for unaccompanied children, suggesting that action to address these children’s needs remains significant there. With the Russian invasion in Ukraine in February 2022, numbers of unaccompanied child refugees are once again on the rise in the UK, even more so in Poland and Germany.