– 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.
Explore Reset’s impact as we have supported the Community Sponsorship movement across the UK— training, mobilising, and supporting community groups to open their doors to those who need it most.
Reset’s values not only define who we are as an organisation, but how we show up for the communities we serve.
Reset’s Theory of Change sets out what needs to happen for community-led welcome to succeed and the role Reset plays in making that happen.
Research, monitoring and evaluation are essential for making evidence-based decisions that will support Community Sponsorship to grow and flourish.
Find out how Community Sponsorship helps refugee families in need build a new life in the UK with confidence and dignity.
Understanding migration is essential for anyone getting involved in Community Sponsorship. Build your foundational knowledge of migration here.
Read all news and insight from our initiatives
See coverage of Reset UK in the press and media
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?
