As part of your Sponsor Agreement with the Home Office, you will have consented to participate in follow up calls through your first year of support of the family you welcome. These will provide an opportunity to reflect on the support you are offering and to bring up any challenges you may be having. Reset will…
Articles tagged with: Sponsor obligation
Arrival planning guidance
The day you’ve been planning for is getting very close! Here, we share what other groups have done or thought about during the arrival period. Managing the arrival of the family you will be supporting is usually one of the most exciting parts of your Community Sponsorship journey, as it marks the time when all…
Finding accommodation
We know that a significant part of your work in the application process to become a Community Sponsorship group will focus on housing. As part of your sponsor agreement, you will be agreeing to source suitable accommodation for a family for a two year period. The accommodation must: Have a minimum of a two year lease Have…
Food, furniture and household items
Community Sponsorship groups will need to provide equipment, groceries and other basic items in the property ahead of a refugee family’s arrival. Like with anyone, there will be personal and cultural preferences around food and household items, and you will want to strike a balance between giving refugees choices about what is in their home,…
Home Office feedback opportunities
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…
Pre-Approval Meetings
Once you submit your application to the Home Office, the Community Sponsorship team will check to make sure you’ve submitted all of your additional documents. They may come back to you with some clarifying questions (this is perfectly normal and happens to most Community Sponsorship groups). They will then get in touch to schedule your…
Preparing a complaints handling policy and procedure
In order to gain approval as a Community Sponsorship Group, your application will need to have a clear complaints policy that outlines how you will handle a complaint that may be made by the refugees you are supporting. It should outline how the complaint will be handled and the timeline for action. If you are working with…
Preparing a fact sheet for the family you will support
Once you’ve been allocated a family, and you and your Local Authority have accepted them, you will need to prepare a fact sheet that will be shared with the family your group will be welcoming. This is your opportunity to introduce yourselves, the support you are offering, and information about the area they will be living in. We’ve…
Preparing accommodation
You will need to obtain accommodation that is of a good and adequate standard and available at a sustainable cost for the family. The Home Office will need to be satisfied that it is suitable, and your Local Authority must be invited to inspect the property. You will have carried out a huge amount of…
Principal Sponsor Application Process (PSAP)
Lead Sponsor Organisations who have been designated by the Home Office to be a Principal Sponsor are able to submit applications that use a different format to the traditional Community Sponsorship application. Groups will still need to research how they will support a refugee family, and will be able to welcome a family either through…
Receiving the personal data of refugees
As a Community Sponsor, you will receive personal data of the refugees that are allocated to your group. This will help you decide whether you can meet the needs of the family that is allocated to you. The information you will receive is extremely confidential and will contain the ages, genders, biographic information and medical…
Resettlement Evaluation
The Home Office requires all Community Sponsorship groups to keep records during their support of a family throughout the Sponsor Agreement period. Not only is this essential for managing both the support of a family and the running of the sponsor group, but it is also necessary for fulfilling your sponsor obligation to the Home Office to…
Safeguarding E-learning
Our Safeguarding Awareness E-Learning is available for all Community Sponsorship group members. This training course has been designed for Community Sponsorship groups preparing to welcome a refugee family. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. As a community sponsorship volunteer you must be alert to safeguarding concerns so that you are able to recognise, respond and report in a timely,…
Setting your budget
As part of your resettlement plan you will need to design a budget. This is because you need to have an idea of the costs involved in supporting a resettled family when you are deciding what kind of support your group can offer. Having an idea of the costs will also help you to plan your…
Sponsor obligations and requirements
In Community Sponsorship, you will have requirements and obligations between the organisation acting as Lead Sponsor and the Home Office, which will be outlined in your sponsor agreement. You can see a sample sponsor agreement on gov.uk, however, you should ensure that you read your sponsor agreement carefully prior to signing it, and ask your Home Office…
Welcome to the UK booklet
Groups have found it useful to refer to this booklet and the information it contains to remind the family they are supporting about life in the UK. This is provided to refugees before they arrive in the UK, and should be provided in hard copy to your group. The booklet was created in 2018/9 by the Home…
Working with landlords
Community Sponsorship groups across the UK have developed hugely creative ways to find affordable, sustainable accommodation for families arriving through Community Sponsorship. For the most part, we are seeing groups accessing property through private landlords, whether they are connected to the group or not. In this resource, we will look at the role of the landlord in…
Charitable status
In order to be approved by the Home Office as a Community Sponsorship group, your application must be made through a registered charity or community interest company (CIC). This organisation will be your Lead Sponsor. The charity must be registered with the Charities Commission in England and Wales, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR)…
Learning about the Prevent programme
Your safeguarding policy includes sections on radicalisation and organised crime. To learn more, you can access free e-learning training on Prevent from the Home Office’s website. This takes about 45 minutes and requires a good internet connection. It largely focusses on students in secondary school and college education, however the learning can easily be applied…
New Scots: Integration strategy for Scotland
The Scottish Government have implemented a refugee integration strategy for 2018-2022, which Groups will find a useful guide for the support that they offer. The New Scots strategy is the means through which integration is implemented at national and local levels in Scotland. It has been developed over a number of years through consultation with…
Partnering with a Lead Sponsor
Your Community Sponsorship application must be made by Lead Sponsor Organisation. The organisation must be a charity, community interest company or an exempt charity registered with the appropriate body in the relevant nation of the UK. There are many experienced Lead Sponsors who have a process and a system in which your group could operate, or you may…