I need some advice please!

Social Services has just contacted me regarding a 17 year old who has been thrown out of parental home. He is a Belgian national who has been in the UK a few years, currently at 6th form college. Not clear if father or mother is working. Social Services have helped him apply for IS, but Jobcentre Plus has said he may not be entitled, no right to reside. No decision letter yet. Can anyone advise me as to potential right to reside arguments please? Many thanks

My gut reaction is that if he is the child of a worker then being as how he is under 21 he qualifies as a "family member" (this assumes the working parent is a non British EU national), adn the estrangement is irrelevant.
If he does not have a working parent then I think it would be a question of whether he has had in the past for 5 years while he was dependnet on that parent. So you would need some more facts.

He has a Right to Reside as a family member but this is not why the DWP will refuse benefits. The correct question is does he have a Right to Reside as an independent individual for the purposes of claiming benefits. This is known as a "qualifying" R2R.

To get this he would need to be either working (part time will do, Saturday job at McDonald etc) or be self employed.

check section 6 in the legislation below

2006 No. 1003
IMMIGRATION
The Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006
Made - - - - 30th March 2006
Laid before Parliament 4th April 2006
Coming into force - - 30th April 2006
CONTENTS
PART 1
INTERPRETATION ETC
1. Citation and commencement
2. General interpretation
3. Continuity of residence
4. “Worker”, “self-employed person”, “self-sufficient person” and “student”
5. “Worker or self-employed person who has ceased activity”
6. “Qualified person”
7. Family member
8. “Extended family member”
9. Family members of United Kingdom nationals
10. “Family member who has retained the right of residence”

I have done a few of these cases(inc successful appeals) and with respect to the previous post it is incorrect with regard to benefits though may well be correct for provision of social housing ( I don't deal with housing so my knowledge is sketchy).
He is unlikely to have a R2R for income support purposes in his own right but he certainly can derive this right as a family member under 21 - for this it makes no difference if he is estranged from his mum or dad, just that mum or dad are EU nationals and were either workers at his date of claim or had been workers in the past and retained this status.

I presume he may be entitled to IS as he is estranged and in relevant education? Check this as there is no point in winning the R2R issue only to find that he is not entitled to IS anyway!

I'm not sure of how exactyl the education system works in England (it's slightly different here in NI) but does his attendance at sixth form college count as a general educational course under Reg 1612/68? If so, in light of the opinions of the Attorneys General in Ibrahim and Teixiera, there's a potential argument that he has a right to reside while pursuing his education. It will depend on the terms of the ECJ decisions but it's likely that one of the parents will need to have worked in the UK during his education, assuming the parents are non-british EEA nationals. The argument may not help him in the short term (as it's unlikely to succeed until we get an ECJ decision and even then it's not guaranteed) but it gives you a fall back position if the family member of a worker argument does work.

If social services are involved from experience I know that DWP asks them to support YP until the age of 18.
Is the YP looked after? Is he/she in temp accomodation or accomodated in a Crash Pad?