Welcome to the California Department of Social Services

Right Column

Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program

The Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM) program provides culturally- and linguistically-appropriate child welfare, foster care, and independent living services to minors who do not have parents in the United States (U.S.), or who enter the U.S. unaccompanied by a parent, an immediate adult relative, or an adult having documentable legal evidence of custody of the minor. 

Please note: the State administered URM program differs from the Federally administered Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) program , operated through the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Populations served by the URM program include:

  • Refugees;
  • Cuban/Haitian entrants;
  • Asylees;
  • Victims of human trafficking who have an Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) eligibility letter; or
  • Minors who have received Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) while in ORR’s custody.

Youths must be less than 18 years of age to enter the program and ORR determines their program eligibility. The URM program is 100 percent federally-funded through ORR and assists the unaccompanied youths in developing appropriate skills to enter adulthood and achieve social and economic self-sufficiency, as described in the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program Fact Sheet. 

Two lead voluntary agencies, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), assist ORR with the URM program by conducting several important functions. They identify eligible children in need of URM services; determine appropriate placements for children among their national networks of affiliated agencies; and conduct training, research and technical assistance on URM services. Affiliates of these two voluntary agencies contract with state refugee programs to become URM service providers.

Since April 2004, the California Department of Social Services, Refugee Programs Bureau (CDSS/RPB) has administered the California URM program, contracting with two URM service providers: Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County (CCSCC), a USCCB affiliate based in San Jose, Santa Clara County, and Crittenton Services for Children and Families (CSCF), a LIRS affiliate based in Fullerton, Orange County.

Under Title 45 Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) Part 400.112(a), states are mandated to provide foster care and child welfare services to URMs that are equivalent to those provided to mainstream foster youth. Additionally, states must provide child welfare services to URMs according to the state’s child welfare standards, practices, and procedures.

Below are links to more detailed information on the URM program. If you have questions regarding the URM program, please contact the RPB at (916) 654-4356 or RPB@dss.ca.gov .  

NOTE:  Most links below are to documents in Adobe Acrobat portable document format (PDF).  Please see our Using the Site webpage for more information on PDF files.

PROGRAM INFORMATION

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES