Welcome to Stoke-on-Trent
October 2008 saw the launch of the government’s new Refugee Integration and Employment Service. Stoke on Trent CAB has been commissioned, as part of a regional partnership involving the Refugee Council and local agencies in Coventry and Wolverhampton, to deliver this service in Stoke.
The service provides advice and information to people newly granted refugee status to support them integrate into the local community and, in particular, seek employment.
Home Office research suggested that new refugees were a group far more likely to be unemployed and to need more support in gaining employment than members of the host community.
In the first six months of this project we helped 28 people in this situation.
The accompanying case study describes in more detail the service we can provide through this additional funding.
“Many new refugees, understandably, struggle to find work, accommodation and to access benefits when their asylum support finishes, often quite abruptly.
“This project provides an essential service to people in that situation to help them fulfil their aspirations at becoming active and contributing members of their new communities,” said Equalities Team Manager Jude Hawes.
“I can’t believe that this is happening in Britain in the 20th Century.” This is the response of one participant from a local statutory agency to the evidence of destitution amongst refugees and people seeking asylum presented to a major local conference, held during Refugee Week in June 2008.
This conference, organised by Stoke on Trent CAB and attended by 90 representatives of local service providers, including the Police, Health and Children’s Services, heard speeches from national organisations such as the Red Cross and the Children’s Society and heard directly from several individuals who had experienced destitution themselves.
The event succeeded in raising awareness of the issue and its impact on other significant local issues such as infant mortality. As a consequence of this conference greater attention is being paid by local agencies as to how they can respond more effectively to people who are destitute.
During the year staff in the Refugee & Asylum Team attended six Area Implementation Teams to give presentations on issues affecting people seeking asylum and refugees. This was part of the local authority’s Community Cohesion initiatives designed to dispel some of the myths and misconceptions which surround these communities. A wide range of service providers and community leaders were given accurate information about refugee & asylum seeking communities and members of those communities shared their own personal experiences.
The team has also delivered training to refugee community leaders to support and develop community groups. Training has covered governance, managing finances, managing meetings and UK institutions.
In December 2008 the Institute for Community Cohesion commended Stoke CAB’s Learning to Advise training scheme for Refugees & Asylum Seekers in their annual Awards for Bridging Cultures.
This prestigious national award was a major achievement for the team who have successfully recruited and trained members of the refugee & asylum seeking communities as bureau volunteers.
In making the award the judges stated this project was “an excellent example of building skills and creating opportunities for employment for refugees and asylum seekers with benefits for local volunteers.” They also felt “there was a clear need for this work given the challenges facing Stoke on Trent and that success here could provide a strong lead to projects in other areas.”
The day to day work of the team remained, throughout the year advising and helping members of the asylum seeking and refugee communities deal with the many practical issues which face them. This can range from accessing education for their children or health care through to ensuring their financial support comes through on time to dealing with the poor quality of accommodation they are required to endure. During the year the team helped 1438 members of those communities, 160 of whom were children experiencing destitution.
‘Sarah’s' Story
'Sarah' is a 28 year old single woman who fled the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe to seek asylum in the UK. Dispersed to Stoke her application for refugee status was granted in December 2008.
Given 28 days to vacate her NASS accommodation she was referred by the Home Office to the Refugee Integration and Employment Service Project in Stoke. We helped her to find a privately rented flat, access a rental deposit scheme to protect her deposit and helped her claim the relevant benefits.
Our RIES employment caseworker then worked with her to prepare a CV, brush up her interview skills and support her in her hunt for work.
'Sarah' was fortunate to be offered a job as a support worker with a social care business and was just about to start her job when to her horror the job offer was withdrawn.
Her future employer had checked with the United Kingdom Border Agency whether or not 'Sarah' was entitled to work and had received a very unclear statement which they interpreted as meaning she wasn’t legally entitled to work. Being well aware of the penalties employers face for employing people without a right to work they had withdrawn the job offer.
Desperate to work 'Sarah' returned to the bureau and we queried this decision with both the employer and UKBA as being granted refugee status should have automatically entitled her to work. On speaking to the employer it became clear that the information they had been given by UKBA was wrong so we contacted UKBA and pointed out to them that not only had they got this information wrong in this instance but as this was a standard letter, other people were likely to suffer the same fate.
UKBA then corrected the false impression they had created and agreed to change their literature to make it clearer.
When we informed 'Sarah’s' future employer of this they changed their decision, reinstated their job offer and 'Sarah' was able to start work.