Cathryn Morgan – Family First and Refugee Coordinator
Ceredigion County Council
In this toolkit, we provide you with advice on
Community Sponsorship offers as much to neighbourhoods and communities as it does to refugee families. Bringing together the skills, experience and people in your neighbourhoods, Community Sponsorship offers the chance to strengthen community connections, welcome new friends and neighbours, as well as helping some of the world’s most vulnerable refugees.
We can offer support and expert advice to Local Authorities who are exploring how to give ‘permission to apply’ to Community Sponsorship groups. We recognise that many Local Authorities will be looking at this for the first time and we want to make this as straightforward as possible for you.
You can also contact us directly with any questions or concerns you may have. We’re here to help!
This toolkit has been produced by the Home Office and Reset Communities for Refugees, with thanks to the Local Authorities and Strategic Migration Partnerships who participated in the development of this resource.
Your regional or national Strategic Migration Partnership can assist you too. With Community Sponsorship taking place in every nation and region in the UK, experience is increasing, and knowledge is being shared.
As a Local Authority, when a family is welcomed through Community Sponsorship, you are able to claim funds to support the children’s education from the Home Office. Your Local Health Board or Clinical Commissioning Group can claim for healthcare costs for each family member.
Advice and support: We can answer any questions about the scheme, the process, and requirements you need to fulfil.
We can help you navigate how to provide permission to apply to a Community Sponsorship group. We can meet with you to help you design your permission to apply process.
Connect with other Local Authorities: We can connect you with other Local Authorities who have resettled families through Community Sponsorship.
Share best practice on providing permission to apply: We can share best practice and provide template letters for Local Authorities upon request so that you can see what others have done.
Contact the Reset Team via [email protected] for the advice and support you need.
Canterbury City Council are working in close partnership with Canterbury Welcomes Refugees and resettled families are benefiting from this. We have worked together to provide a needs-led ESOL provision. We collaborate on initiatives, police, risk assessments, and this has led to a really consistent approach for all the families. As a council we have benefitted from the expertise and skills of the volunteers that CWR recruits and they are generous in supporting council resettled families in addition to their own.
Janine Hodges – Community Services Manager
Canterbury City Council
Local Authorities are a key partner in Community Sponsorship for the groups working across the UK to welcome refugees into their communities. You are asked to be involved in Community Sponsorship projects so that you are aware of the refugee families who will be welcomed into your community. You will be asked to assist the group in ensuring their safeguarding measures are fit for purpose and work on a local level, as well as connecting them with the services on offer for newly arrived families.
You are not being asked to approve the application, or carry out security checks on the group members; the Home Office do this through a rigorous application process.
Acceptance of the refugee family
You will be asked to approve the family who are arriving to your area, alongside the group. You may need to liaise with the Clinical Commissioning Group or Health Board and/or your local educational department to ensure any health or additional educational needs can be met. You will also be able to submit funding claims to the Home Office for funds for education for children and young people.
Taking on support
In the very unlikely event of a breakdown in the relationship between the welcomed family and the group, or if there are ongoing support needs after the end of the formal sponsor agreement, the Local Authority may take on a leadership role in the resettlement of the family with funding made available to you from the Home Office.
You will be asked to complete the permission to apply form or write a letter of permission from your Local Authority to the Home Office for the Community Sponsorship group to submit alongside their application.
Housing check
The Community Sponsorship group will need to invite the Local Authority to view the property they find for the family they will be supporting. If Local Authorities do choose to do the inspection, the housing check should be in line with standards specified by your authority. Some Local Authorities have removed charges for these checks, others ask the groups to cover the costs. The group will be contacting the local Safer Neighbourhood Team at your local police force, to ensure that the area is safe for a newly arrived refugee family.
Safeguarding
The group will be asked to submit their safeguarding policy to your Local Authority Safeguarding Team to comment on. Should the Safeguarding Team be unable to do this, then the safeguarding policy will be checked by the Home Office. The group will be asked to show evidence that they have engaged with the Safeguarding Team. If the Lead Sponsor organisation has applied to the same Local Authority within the previous six months, they will not need to ask for their safeguarding policy to be reviewed again.
Further involvement
Pre-Approval Meeting (PAM) – you will be invited to attend the Pre-Approval Meeting with the group and the Home Office. The group’s application is discussed in detail and provides all those who attend the meeting with the opportunity to raise any questions, comments or concerns they may have.
You will be asked to approve the acceptance of the refugee family allocated to the group.
You will be invited to join the first post-arrival support visit with the group and Reset, so you can hear how the group and family are getting on. You may be able to offer local expertise or a contact if the group have a problem with a particular area of their support.
To enhance our understanding of the experiences of those being resettled through Community Sponsorship, in December we brought together a group of women who had arrived in the UK through this scheme. We then facilitated a workshop in January with welcomed refugee men who had arrived in the UK through this scheme.
Read more of this fantastic overview and discussion exploring the experiences of refugee women and men who have arrived in the UK through Community Sponsorship.
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In Mole Valley we are delighted at how well the Community Sponsorship arrangement has worked. The family have truly benefitted from the support given and arranged by our local Community Sponsorship group. A definite success story.
Mole Valley District Council
The application process for Community Sponsorship groups is rigorous and all applications must be approved by the Home Office.
To make the process as manageable as possible, groups are able to apply for approval in principle subject to meeting certain conditions, primarily finding accommodation. This could impact the permission to apply that you provide because you will be invited to inspect the property after you permission has already been granted. In this case, we recommend including this in your permission to apply letter and stating that your permission to apply is subject to approving the property.
Following the successful pilot of the Principal Sponsor Application Process (PSAP) scheme in 2021, Local Authorities may be approached by Community Sponsorship groups who are applying via the PSAP route.
PSAP allows groups to tailor their application form and property search to a specific family who have been referred to them by the Home Office, and whom they have accepted to welcome. You will still be asked to provide your permission for the group to apply to the Home Office, however, the sequencing of the application will work differently to traditional applications.
What is a Principal Lead Sponsor?
A Principal Lead Sponsor is a Lead Sponsor organisation who have previously successfully applied and welcomed a family through the Community Sponsorship programme. This term is applied to the organisations selected by the Home Office to participate in the process as having a successful track record of refugee resettlement. You can find a list of current Principal Sponsors on the Reset Community Sponsorship website. Local Authorities have shared with us that they feel more confidence in working with those who have a track record of Community Sponsorship in this way.
What is the purpose of PSAP?
In recognising the experience of Lead Sponsors through this process, the Home Office introduced the PSAP process as a response to their wish to make the sponsorship process quicker and easier. Groups are also able to plan their support for a specific family, rather than working in the abstract. Groups who have welcomed through this process have all said this is the biggest benefit that they have seen. It means they can get a ‘head-start’ on building bespoke support for a family, rather than preparing their applications for all eventualities.
What is the Principal Sponsor Application Process?
| Application Part 1 |
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| Application Part 2 |
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| Family Arrival |
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What risks are there in Community Sponsorship?
It is important to be transparent about the risks associated with Community Sponsorship. When you are considering your permission process, this is something you will want to consider.
It is important to keep in mind that of the many hundreds of refugees welcomed by Community Sponsorship groups in the UK, a relationship breakdown between a group and family is very uncommon. The outcomes for both the resettled refugees and for the community groups that support them have been overwhelmingly successful and positive. In a very small minority of cases where there has been a sponsorship breakdown, the Local Authority has assumed the responsibility for supporting resettled refugees.
Whilst this is not exhaustive, you can find below an outline of some of the risks and the mitigation factors that are built into the programme.
| Risk Identified | Mitigating factor |
|---|---|
| Community Sponsorship group have breakdown of relationship with family |
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| Group not prepared for resettling a family |
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| Community Sponsorship groups use housing stock the Local Authority could access |
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| The family allocated to the group will not be suitable |
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| The resettled family will place extra demand on Local Authority funding |
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| The Local Authority will be expected to support the family after year two |
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| The Local Authority will be expected to find housing for the family after two years |
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| Unrealistic expectations will be created for what the Local Authority can deliver |
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| Community Sponsorship will run counter to our own resettlement programme |
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| There may be political opposition to resettlement locally |
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| We have not done any form of refugee resettlement |
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A key factor for us has been that the Salvation Army is housing the family for two years in a property it owns. Merton London Borough Council does not participate in the VPRS programme for Local Authorities because of the pressures on social housing, but the Community Sponsorship scheme has helped us to find a housing solution.
Merton London Borough Council
Who gives permission to apply?
Deciding who in your Local Authority needs to give permission for the group to participate in Community Sponsorship will be determined by you. If you are in an area which is not yet participating in refugee resettlement, it may not be immediately obvious who this will be.
There is a wide range of individuals within Local Authorities who have signed permission letters for Community Sponsorship groups, including Local Authority staff members in the role of Housing Options Manager, Commissioning Manager, Chief Executive, Councillor and Social Inclusion Manager. Only you as the Local Authority will know who is best to provide the group’s permission to apply in your organisation.
Whoever provides the permission to apply should have sufficient authority within the Local Authority to provide this. As you work through who should give permission, keep the Community Sponsorship group informed of progress. Groups may think that receiving permission to apply is a simple process, so do be clear about likely timescales and the process you will need to follow.
How long is the permission valid for?
The permission you provide will be valid for a six month period from the date of signing. If the group do not fulfil their conditions for approval, or if it is not possible to allocate a family to the group within this time, you will be asked to reconfirm your permission via email, which will be requested by the Home Office Community Sponsorship Team.
Questions to ask to determine who needs to give permission
Remember that you might find that the person carrying out the day-to-day work on providing permission may not be the representative of the Local Authority who needs to give permission to apply to the group. Do make sure the Community Sponsorship group are aware of this.
Permission to Apply Form
We have developed a permission to apply form for you to use to document and provide your considerations and permission. You do not have to use this and may choose to write your own letter of permission on your local authority headed paper.
The LA-Toolkit-Consent-Form-updated-May-2022. Please note that for this to be accepted by the Home Office, it must be either inserted onto your letterhead, or sent in the body of an email from the person providing permission with their email signature in place. This can be sent to this government email (link here) as well as to the Community Sponsorship group.
Local Authorities are not expected to grapple with their concerns alone, and you can always speak to Reset or your SMP. Below we have provided some answers to commonly asked questions.
Do Community Sponsorship groups get any support?
Reset provides advice and support to groups at every stage of the Community Sponsorship process. This includes support in the application writing process, a two part required training (organised by Reset before the refugee family arrives), application checking service, as well as support with any challenges that groups may encounter after the arrival of the family.
Additionally, each Community Sponsorship application needs to be submitted by a Lead Sponsor. The Home Office requires that each Lead Sponsor have Charity or Community Interest Company (CIC) status. Some groups decide to register as a charity themselves, but many others work with a larger charity who acts as their Lead Sponsor. These organisations not only offer support to groups, but also take responsibility should anything go wrong.
How is the group’s work with the resettled family monitored?
As part of the Community Sponsorship agreement with the Home Office, groups agree to participate in follow up visits. Reset lead on these visits (facilitated online via Zoom), accompanied by a member of the Home Office to help groups ensure that their support obligations are being met. A representative of the Local Authority will also be invited to participate in the first visit. We meet with both the group and family, using an independent interpreter supplied by Reset.
You can read here to learn more about the forms of monitoring and evaluation conducted within Community Sponsorship.
What if the refugee family needs support beyond 12 months?
It is very rare that the Local Authority is required to step in and provide support beyond the 12 month mark. In practice, we find that many groups decide to continue providing some kind of support to the resettled families who will have often formed strong bonds with the group and the wider community. If further support is required, it will be identified through the Post Arrival Support Visits and a managed handover will be agreed with the Local Authority prior to the end of the sponsor agreement. At this stage the Local Authority can also start claiming additional funds from the Home Office, in line with those available to families resettled through Local Authority resettlement.
What happens in the event of a sponsorship breakdown?
The Home Office will work with the group and the Lead Sponsor to do everything within reason to prevent the sponsorship breakdown. Should the group disband, the Lead Sponsor would be expected to put in place steps to continue the support of the family. If this is not sustainable or possible, the Local Authority may be asked to continue the support.
If a sponsorship arrangement breaks down, an appropriate level of funding will be made available to the Local Authority, within the existing tariff structure, to provide the necessary support to the resettled family. It is intended that the Local Authority will not suffer financially.
How is housing for the family provided?
The Community Sponsorship group is obligated to ensure that accommodation is made available to the family for two years. Most groups approach private landlords, some can secure a housing association property, and some even decide to purchase a property that is then rented out to the refugee family. A particular benefit of the scheme is that, especially in more expensive areas, groups often find landlords who decide to offer their property for a lower rate than they would have received on an open market. The Local Authority are invited to inspect the property to ensure it meets local housing standards and the area must be approved by the local police using the Home Office Police Consultation form.
What about housing beyond two years?
As part of their application, groups are asked to think about long term housing solutions for the welcomed refugee family as soon as they arrive to ensure that affordable, sustainable accommodation will be available for the family to live in at the two-year point.
If you need more information about supporting Community Sponsorship groups as a Local Authority, please get in touch.
Read all news and insight from our initiatives
See coverage of Reset UK in the press and media
Find out how Community Sponsorship helps refugee families in need build a new life in the UK with confidence and dignity.
How do I sponsor a refugee family? How does the process work? Reset is here to support you every step of the way.
We’ve designed toolkits to make it easy for you if you’re involved as a lead sponsor or a local authority.
Wherever you are on the fulfilling and thrilling journey through Community Sponsorship, we have training courses, videos, articles and more, all designed to help your group and the family you support.
From drop-in sessions to UK-wide networking events, we bring together people and professionals involved in all stages of the Community Sponsorship journey.
Make a direct difference in the world by getting involved with your nearest Community Sponsorship group – or starting one up yourself!
Make an extraordinary difference to the lives of people who have lost everything by signing up to our (free) Landlords for Refugees register.
Not everyone can donate their time, so if you are choosing to donate money today instead or as well as, thank you. Your generosity is vital to the work we do support community-led welcome of refugees.
Help others by sharing your account. Why were you attracted to community-led welcome? What worked, what did you learn, what has the experience been like for you?
Reset empowers volunteers to welcome refugees into communities across the UK. Find out about us and the kinds of programmes we’ve been involved with.
Research, monitoring and evaluation are essential for making evidence-based decisions that will support Community Sponsorship to grow and flourish.
Sponsoring a refugee family is a significant responsibility. We advocate for Community Sponsors to ensure that they are properly supported throughout their journey.
Our advocacy focuses on representing the views of Community Sponsors to the Home Office to support them in implementing the necessary operational changes.
We also represent the views of Community Sponsors to other key stakeholders, including Local Authorities, international organisations, the wider resettlement field, housing providers and financial institutions. We also use our voice to campaign on policies affecting refugees. We are members of the Together With Refugees coalition, campaigning for a more humane approach to people seeking protection in the UK.
