A year and a half has passed since Reset launched our Homes for Ukraine matching service with the goal of safely matching Ukrainian refugees with sponsors here in the UK. To date, the government has issued over 160,000 sponsorship scheme visas to Ukrainians seeking refuge in the UK with Reset matching 1,248 hosts with refugee families and groups.
Since our service launched in April 2022, a lot has changed, and our matching service has had to adapt. We’ve moved from an emergency response with 1000 hosts signing up a week to a steadier and much lower dozen hosts per month. From the outset, we put in place four principles to guide our matching service to give agency to refugees, prepare hosts, match safely and encourage hosts to connect with their community for support.

Evaluating our service

Earlier this year, to mark the anniversary of the launch of our matching service, we commissioned an evaluation to understand how well we followed our principles, how we can improve our current support for host and refugees, and what we can learn for future responses.

We commissioned an evaluation that sought to consider three points:

1. Did the Homes for Ukraine matching service demonstrate its principles?
2. What makes an effective matching service (for hosts, guests and Reset) and to what extent has Reset provided this?
3. How well positioned is Reset’s matching service to support future refugee responses?

Our evaluators conducted key interviews with a sample of hosts and guests who were matched through Reset as well as interviews with staff at partner organisations, and a survey which was sent to a large sample of matched hosts and refugees.

How did we do?

The findings were overwhelmingly positive, showing that our matching service meets the four principles we set out to follow: refugee choice, safety, host preparedness and encouraging community connection, in a considered manner. It also found that the service was effective in meeting some or all host and refugee matching needs and around half hosts and guests saying that ‘nothing was lacking’ in the service.

However, one aspect that was found to be lacking from hosts and refugees alike, was the absence of ongoing support from Reset post-matching, with Reset ending formal support once a match was made. We recognise that this is a gap in our service and have listened to this feedback. We are now doing more post-arrival support work and are offering one-to-one support calls as well as regular check in emails to hosts and refugees matched through Reset.

Finally, the evaluation also found that the matching service is well-positioned to respond to future refugee resettlement schemes. Our scheme was highly rated by users with a 95% satisfaction rate. Despite several potential barriers to scaling, we hope to engage hosts who have had positive experiences with our service and utilise technological investments we’ve made in setting up our matching platform and database.

What is the future of matching?

With the government considering a scheme to welcome Afghans, we can use learning from Homes for Ukraine and from the Community Sponsorship programme to better serve refugees and the communities that support them. Thanks to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, we have the existing technological infrastructure to register willing hosts, landlords and volunteers in the UK and match them with refugees in need of support or a place to stay.

The details of the Afghan scheme are still to be determined but we are already able to offer more coordination and support to hosts looking to get involved, whether you’d like to get involved in a refugee support group in your area or if you have a house you’d like to let to a soon-to-arrive refugee family in need. Since working on the Ukraine scheme, we understand the importance of harnessing momentum and public will to help refugees.

Given the feedback in our evaluation, we know that ongoing support will be key in this programme. We will ensure that those registered in our service are able to access valuable training, advice, and support from Reset throughout their journey and count on us to point them in the right direction wherever possible. Reset’s training for Homes for Ukraine has been attended by 6,500 hosts and local authority staff and we will continue to offer the same support as volunteers and local authorities prepare to welcome the 6,000 Afghans waiting to be resettled in the UK.

You can read the full evaluation here