Understand the feedback opportunities and reporting requirements for Community Sponsorship groups
As a Community Sponsorship group, you will have several opportunities to provide feedback on your experience of welcoming a family to the UK. The Home Office have created a brief on their reporting requirements to make the process as simple as possible for you to follow. Listed below are details of the opportunities for you to share your experience of Community Sponsorship, including when you can expect to hear from the Home Office or Reset.
Your participation in these exercises as Community Sponsorship groups is vital as it provides the Home Office with important information about your experience resettling refugees and the integration outcomes of the families you support. Sharing your thoughts will enable them to better understand areas of success for the scheme and to identify where they can make improvements.
1. Post Arrival Support Visits (PASVs)
On behalf of the Home Office, Reset will conduct three Post Arrival Support Visits within the first year with your group and the welcomed family. Held virtually on Zoom, these meetings are for you to discuss how things are progressing with your initial resettlement plans, and to offer you support and advice. Broadly, you will discuss the support that you are offering in key areas such as benefits, education, English language learning, healthcare, employment and volunteering. Reset will also help you to reflect on the progress you are making towards helping the family build independence and to transition your support over time.
Further information about what to expect during the PASVs can be found on our website here.
2. Community Sponsorship Annual Survey
Every year, the Home Office Community Sponsorship Team will send a link to the Annual Survey via email to all groups who have either resettled a family or submitted an application.
This Annual Survey provides an opportunity for Community Sponsor groups to reflect on their experiences of the Home Office Community Sponsorship process and customer service, Local Authority engagement, and Reset’s performance in providing support and training. The insight gained from this research will be used to improve the experiences for future Community Sponsorship groups.
For further information please email [email protected].
3. Resettlement Evaluation
You may be aware from your sponsorship agreement that the Resettlement Evaluation exercise requires your group to submit data on the outcomes being achieved by those you are supporting, such as their housing situation, their access to education and employment, their progress in learning English, and the community links they are making.
Currently, the Home Office Resettlement Evaluation team collects this data once a year, with the collection window typically launching in October and remaining open for six weeks. In line with the duration of the integration support that you provide to families in their first year of resettlement, the Home Office only expect you to provide data once. At the time of data collection, families will generally have been with you for between 3-15 months.
Findings from this evaluation exercise, which importantly include the self-reported experiences of resettled refugees, are intended to inform policy and to improve the support available for people arriving through resettlement in future years. The data you provide is also key to improving understanding of the value that the sponsorship model has on the integration journeys of those you are supporting.
You can read more about the Resettlement Evaluation on our website here.
If you are new to the process or otherwise have any questions, please get in touch with the Evaluation Team at [email protected].
4. Reset Year Two Interviews
At the two-year mark, Reset will invite your group for an hour long interview to better understand integration outcomes for the family, the level of independence the family have managed to achieve in the last two years, and if there are any learnings you would like Reset and the Home Office to be aware of, when offering the Community Sponsorship scheme to future groups. Reset would also like to understand from you if Community Sponsorship is something your group would choose to do again, and if so, then what further support you would need to do this.
From the Home Office Team, and our Reset Team, thank you for the warm welcome and support you are providing to families welcomed through Community Sponsorship.