Hear from our Strategy Director, Emma Harrison, on what safe routes are currently available for refugees to come to the UK.

Based on our learning across different forms of community-led welcome, Reset is advocating for a single future sponsorship scheme set out in our discussion paper. To develop our thinking and learn from the experience of key stakeholders, in December we brought together the Lead Sponsor Network to start to discuss some of the challenging questions in the design of a future scheme.

We sat down with another one of our Trustees, Ellie Stacey, to talk about how she became one of our board members.

We spoke to Shilla Mutamba, one of our Trustees, about her experience and why you should apply to join our board!

We are looking for trustees who are committed to our mission and can help set the strategic direction of our charity.

In December 2022, Reset held a roundtable with experts from the sector to discuss in-house hosting and alternative housing options in the future of sponsorship. This along with further discussions and research will shape Reset’s more detailed policy proposals for a single sponsorship scheme.

As the end of year draws closer, we wanted to reflect on our shared achievements – and challenges – and look forward to the future.

Carly, the longest-serving member of the Reset team, is moving on. In this blog post, she reflects on her time at Reset.

In the latest series of our CEO’s learning from Homes for Ukraine, Kate highlights the increasing need for more sponsors to open their homes to refugees.

In the latest series of our CEO’s learning from Homes for Ukraine, Kate shares some advice to plan for the arrival of your guests.

In the latest series of our CEO’s learning from Homes for Ukraine, Kate shares how sponsors sometimes have fixed views of who a refugee is.

In this third post from our CEO, Kate, on the Homes for Ukraine programme, she shares what we’re learning from the process of relational matching.

In this second post from our CEO, Kate, on the Homes for Ukraine programme, she shares what we’re learning from speaking to sponsors who are getting involved with Homes for Ukraine.

Over the coming days our CEO, Kate, will be sharing our learning to date through our website and meetings with allies. We have learned a lot, far too much for one article, so we want to start with what Ukrainian refugees need from the Homes for Ukraine programme.

Reset launches a matching and training service to pair sponsors and refugees under the UK Government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme. It has mobilised experts in safeguarding to assess sponsors and refugees to make sure that the matching is suitable.It will scale the matching service in response to refugee demand. Reset will also provide a training service, drawing on the expertise of Refugees at Home, for sponsors, local authorities, and community groups.

Reset have released a sponsor toolkit for those wishing to welcome through the Homes for Ukraine programme.

We welcome the recognition that individuals and communities in the UK can play in a key role in opening their doors to those urgently in need of safety having fled from the conflict in Ukraine.

We’re receiving hundreds of offers to help Ukrainians arrive to the UK.

15 Community Sponsorship groups told us about their highs and lows as they reached the end of their 2 year Community Sponsorship journey. We have published a short analysis of their reflections.

We’re delighted to share that we have been awarded the contract by the Home Office to continue as the UK’s Community Sponsorship support organisation.

Reset has responded to the draft Refugee Integration Strategy 2022-2027 urging the Executive Office to include within the strategy its ambition to grow Community Sponsorship in Northern Ireland.

We were delighted to fund the VOICES Network to carry out a second phase of research with refugees resettled through Community Sponsorship into their experience of arriving in the UK. We believe this will offer Community Sponsorship groups a great deal of food for thought as they prepare to welcome families to the UK.

We are delighted to announce that our new Training Website is now live. The website’s new design and features make it easier for Community Sponsorship groups to access vital resources and track their progress.

Local volunteers in 7 locations across England have welcomed refugee nurses arriving to work for the NHS through the Neighbours for Newcomers programme.

Community Sponsorship groups will now be able to welcome Afghan refugees through the new Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme. We are adapting our training and support so that groups will be prepared to welcome refugees who have spent time in temporary accommodation.

The deadline for Lead Sponsors to register for the Community Sponsorship Backstop Fund is 31st January 2022. Co-Director of Reset, Dr Kate Brown, urges Lead Sponsors to register as soon as possible to benefit from the added security provided by the Backstop Fund.

Black Friday is renowned for being one of the busiest (and most chaotic!) shopping days of the year. But more and more people are now looking to use this day as an opportunity to make a difference to a cause close to their heart. This Black Friday, check out these ways you can support migrant communities during this festive season.

We’re delighted to welcome Ellie Stacey, Tim Finch and Shilla Mutamba to our Board of Trustees.

On 23rd October, 25 refugee nurses were greeted by volunteers taking part in the Neighbours for Newcomers programme, which connects local people with refugee nurses arriving to work for the NHS.

On 13th September the Minister for Afghan Resettlement Victoria Atkins confirmed that Community Sponsorship groups will be welcoming Afghan refugees through the Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme (ACRS).

We are pleased to announce a new pilot programme for community volunteers to welcome newcomers to their neighbourhood and details of how you can get involved.

We’ve published the results of our Communities for Refugees campaign, along with our learnings and our next steps.

In June 2021 Reset and the Refugee Council held an online event to hear views from refugee-led community organisations about Community Sponsorship. We have presented a joint briefing to the Immigration Minister Chris Philp making 5 recommendations to enable participation in Community Sponsorship by refugee-led community organisations.

On 24th March 2021, the UK Government published its New Plan for Immigration, outlining its proposals for reforming the asylum system in the UK. The consultation period for these proposals closes on the 6th May 2021.

At Reset, we support Community Sponsorship groups to welcome refugee families by providing training sessions, advice workshops, post-arrival support visits, and more. Although we’re the ones delivering the training and providing the advice, we’re actually learning from Community Sponsorship Groups in all of these situations.

The pandemic brought resettlement to a halt in March 2020. This had a huge impact on the lives of refugees left in limbo, as well as on the networks of support for refugees across Local Authorities and civil society.

One of Reset’s goals as the Community Sponsorship Learning Hub is to continuously improve our support to Community Sponsorship groups. The advice and resources on our training website don’t appear out of thin air. They are rooted in years of learning best practice from you: the people supporting refugee families directly.

Community Sponsorship can transform the lives of refugees and volunteers.

On Sunday, US philanthropist Ed Shapiro pledged £1 million to launch a special fund aimed at encouraging growth in the UK’s Community Sponsorship Scheme. The fund will reduce the financial exposure of Lead Sponsors by providing a backstop that they can access as a last resort if a local Community Sponsorship Group is unable to fulfil its resettlement plan for the refugee family they have welcomed.

We have launched Communities for Refugees: a campaign to demonstrate support for resettlement and get volunteers ready to welcome refugees when resettlement resumes. We’re hugely excited about the campaign and the networks and partners we’re working with to spread the word.

We’re looking to understand more about the impact of Community Sponsorship on the sponsors themselves. What do you learn by becoming a sponsor? What do you gain?

At Reset, we talk a lot about the transformative potential of Community Sponsorship. How it impacts the lives of refugees welcomed into communities in this country, but also how it transforms the lives of those doing the welcoming and brings change to communities.

It’s been just over 4 years since the first refugee family arrived in the UK through the Community Sponsorship scheme. The successful development of a new programme always depends upon independent and thorough evaluation, which is why we are so excited by the University of Birmingham’s research into Community Sponsorship.

Community Sponsorship groups are required to source accommodation that a refugee family can live in for 2 years. In many parts of the country, finding accommodation that the refugee family will be able to afford when receiving Universal Credit is a real challenge. At Reset, we’ve been looking at how groups source accommodation and what lessons other groups can learn from them.

Russell Rook, having taken on a new role as interim director of a new international charity working in the Holy Land, has recently stepped down as Chair of the Board of Trustees at Reset. He has Chaired Reset since we were established in 2018 and we thank him for his dedication and expertise.

Reset was proud to fund the new Local Authority category at the Community Sponsorship Awards that took place on 8th October 2019 at Canada House.

At Reset we welcome the Home Office’s post-2020 announcement, the continued commitment to resettlement, and in particular the move to make the numbers of refugees resettled via Community Sponsorship above and beyond those resettled through the government’s new global scheme. The implications of the announcement for the Community Sponsorship scheme are outlined in more detail below.

Dr Kate Brown and Dr Monika Kruesmann have joined the Reset team as co-Directors (a job share), and introduce themselves here.

The Home Office has awarded £1million to the new civil society organisation Reset Communities and Refugees to enable them to provide support to groups across the UK looking to sponsor families fleeing the war in Syria as part of the Community Sponsorship scheme.