– Landlord from Hackney
To be approved for Community Sponsorship, you must first submit an application to the Home Office. There are many ways to approach this task and your way will be specific to how your Group is structured. The application is separated into four parts, the third of which is your “Community Sponsorship Resettlement Plan.”
This section asks questions that give your Group the opportunity to demonstrate your preparedness to welcome a resettled family into your community.
In order to be approved, you’ll need to do a significant amount of research into the services you’ll be providing a refugee family and communicate your plans in the application.
Remember that your Group can apply for approval in principle without having housing or funding in place at the time of your application.
To be approved for Community Sponsorship, you must first submit an application to the Home Office.
There are many ways to approach this task and your way will be specific to how your Group is structured. The application is separated into four parts, the third of which is your “Community Sponsorship Resettlement Plan.”
Every Group approaches their application differently. Some have divided the application into different research areas that specific core Group members write separately and combine later on.
Other Groups have assigned one member to compile all the research that other Group members have written and write the application to maintain one consistent writing style.
How you decide to organise your group will influence how you approach writing the application.
For Group leaders, it’s important to be clear from the beginning about how much information is needed for each section as you may find that one member writes two pages about interpreters and another member might submit two bullet points about ESOL.
As mentioned above, the purpose of the application is to demonstrate that your Group has identified what it needs to take responsibility for welcoming a refugee family in your community. At the time of writing the application, you will be doing research in the abstract (you don’t know how many people will be in the family, their ages, their specific needs or interests) but you must show that you are prepared for different challenges; it’s not a question of being an expert, it’s about knowing the services and people you can call on should you need them
A key word in the application is empowerment. When formulating your answers, think about how to best enable the family to access the services you are writing about.
Also remember: quality over quantity! Be sure to answer the application’s questions directly without adding too much information, focus on answering what the question is asking. For example, when demonstrating that you are aware of the school registration process, you won’t need to give details of every conversation you’ve had with each school in the area. It will be important for your Group to have access to the research once a family has been allocated, but you only need to demonstrate to the Home Office that you have done the work.
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.
