Coram Children’s Legal Centre has provided legal advice and representation to children and families for over 40 years.
As well as working under legal aid contracts, we have responded to a challenging environment with innovative grant-funded legal advice work and a pioneering project to realise children’s rights to citizenship.
Through advocacy and litigation we have successfully secured changes to laws and policies in order to protect the rights of children and young people.
Recent examples of CCLC’s impact include:
- The Child Law Advice Service provided legal advice and guidance to 13,477 callers on the areas of family, education, and child law in 2024/2025 and there were 1.2 million users of the Service.
- CCLC offered specialist legal advice through its free, confidential immigration advice line – mainly to statutory and voluntary sector professionals but also to young people and families.
- CCLC brought a case that confirmed that there was a possibility of legal aid being granted in challenged to school exlusion appeals on the basis of the European Convention on Human Rights
- CCLC initiated a judicial review in 2024 that confirmed the Home Office had breached its duty to provide adequate accommodation to a mother and her severely disabled child. The mother and child were seeking asylum and inappropriately placed in a hotel where the child’s needs could not be met.
- Coram were named as a core participant in the Covid Inquiry under Module 8 (looking at the impact of the pandemic on children) and CCLC were heavily involved in our participation at the Inquiry.
- CCLC co-chair the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, a group of around 100 organisations with expertise in refugee and/or children’s issues. Together we contribute to the debate on how refugee and migrant children’s rights can best be protected in an increasingly hostile environment
- In 2024 we updated our guide for UNISON social workers to help them support children, young people and families with immigration issues in England.
- Coram International undertook a formative and baseline evaluation on UNICEF’s Access to Justice for Children programme, a formative evaluation of UNICEF’s Parenting Programme in Cambodia and an Assessment of Programme Effectiveness of the UN Joint Programme for the Elimination of Child, Early and Forced marriage in Türkiye.
- Coram International also worked with the Government of Türkiye to introduce emergency and temporary foster care, continued our work on drafting the Child Protection Law for Cambodia and Provision of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Services in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Thanking you again for all your help, without your tenacity and persistence in seeing this case through, we would not have seen this outcome – your efforts are much appreciated by all our family.
(feedback on one of CCLC’s lawyers in the Legal Practice Unit)
“I have tears in my eyes. This case has opened doors – this is music to my ears. It has been a long time coming. You took on this case so that children can now have a chance and feel listened to. I’m just thinking about all the families who can now get legal aid. I feel so good – we have literally made history!”
(comment from client supported in litigation)
Awards recognising our work include:
- Qaisar Sheikh, head of Education Law at Coram Children’s Legal Centre, was named Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year in the category of public law at the Legal Aid Practitioner Group’s 20th Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year awards which took place on the 12th of July 2022.
- In 2021, Coram Children’s Legal Centre was chosen as one of the two Baker McKenzie London office’s Charity of the Year charities, in a two-year partnership that will see the law firm support CCLC’s work through a range of collaborative fundraising, volunteering and pro-bono activity.
- Sophie Freeman, solicitor and manager of the immigration and asylum law team in CCLC’s Legal Practice Unit, won Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year in the social welfare category in 2018.
- Coram Children’s Legal Centre, together with partners DLA Piper and Allen and Overy, won a Law Works Award and a Legal Week Award for its Pro Bono Legal Service in 2015.
- Noel Arnold, former Director of Legal Practice at Coram Children’s Legal Centre became inaugural winner of the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards in the children’s rights category in 2015.
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