Syrian Resettlement National Conference
Westminster Hall 28^th January 2016

As part of the newly formed Camden City of Sanctuary I went along to the conference with City of Sanctuary Trustee and Director of the Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre, Sabir Zazai. It was a pretty diverse event with around 200 attendees from across NGOs, charities, the voluntary sector, local government, the civil service and the EU; convened by the Home Office and more specifically the recently appointed Minister for Syrian Refugees, Richard Harrington and the Director of the Syrian Resettlement Programme, Paul Morrison and his team.

Since the announcement on 7^th September to accept 20,000 refugees on the vulnerable persons scheme directly from the MENA region, 1,000 have arrived. The Home Office deal with the logistics of chartering flights, delivering 5yr humanitarian protection visas (which allow work) and the DLCG work with the local authorities to place them in housing and schools. They are being resettled through the Gateway Protection Programme which resettles vulnerable refugees providing them with housing and caseworker support for 12 months from arrival. The current practice is for Councils to offer places based on affordable housing available which means very few are being sent to London and many dispersed to Scotland and more remote locations. A decision was taken not to take up offers from the community to house Syrian refugees in private homes on the basis that this would only be temporary and not sustainable.

The purpose of the conference was to take stock, learn from experience to date and plan the next phase with fresh input from everyone attending. This could entail doing things quite differently for the next phase of 19,000.

Section 1: pre-arrival, preparation and reception of Syrians.
Aurvasi Patel from UNHCR spoke of the resettlement selection criteria. They have identified approx. 500,000 refugees (mostly in surrounding urban areas and not in camps) as being ‘vulnerable’ and therefore priority for resettlement. These are mostly families, women and children many of whom have suffered sexual and gender-based violence. Currently it does not include single males. Their IDs are captured using iris-scanning. Of these 500,000 ‘in most need’, UNHCR have had 160,000 resettlement offers which includes the 20,000 from the UK. DFID select the refugees via UNHCR.

Pindie Stephen from IOM - the International Organization for Migration spoke about what they do to prepare refugees for resettlement. She spoke of the huge complexity involved with each individual resettlement including health screenings, cultural orientation programmes and travel arrangements. Based on the IOM assessments, the HO then estimates the likely cost to a Local Authority of each resettlement. In one day IOM can have 14,000 Syrian refugees in the air. 4,000 UK-bound refugees have attended cultural orientation sessions that try to manage expectations as well as offer practical guidance for arrival. However the women often do not attend as they are too busy with childcare. Two key aspects tend to determine success – community engagement with resettled refugees and language provision. Norway is often cited as an example of cultural best practice whereas the US focuses on self-sufficiency and tangible outcomes.

Section 2: The UK’s experience of resettling refugees
Stephen Hale, CEO, Refugee Action spoke of the vital role the Local authority plays as they decide who gets resettled and how. Equally important are voluntary services who provide the community cohesion and support but there is also a need to draw much more on the existing Syrian community. He called for more thought to go into what success would look like and to make sure refugees are settled where there is the highest potential for success (ie. not deprived areas with high unemployment). He also called for government to build the capacity of the voluntary sector to support refugees.

Chris Hannington from the Refugee Council quoted a refugee who had said ‘to treat me equally you may have to treat me differently’. She spoke of the need for on going support after the first year and the importance of volunteers to bridge the gap between refugees and host communities.

Paul Kirby from Cabinet Office and no.10 Policy Unit reminded us that approx. 20,000 Vietnamese boat people were resettled in the UK between 1979-81 and ‘centrally managed kindness’ ie. a policy of dispersal to remote areas proved ineffective and inhumane. He suggested that it was best to avoid dispersal to socially deprived areas and better for Syrians to find themselves in ‘high churn’ multi-cultural urban areas with a vibrant informal economy and existing Syrian communities. To avoid a dependency culture amongst new arrivals we need to allow refugees more personal agency about where they live, how they live and how they support themselves. He also reminded us that the Syrian arrivals will add less than 1% p.a. to UK immigration and London boroughs are already bringing in between 2-3,000 refugees p.a.

Nadim Almoshmosh from SCAN (Syrian Charities and Associations Network) an umbrella organisation for approx. 15 Syrian groups and charities spoke of the need for Syrians in the UK to play their part in the support of new arrivals who would effectively double the size of the diaspora. He confirmed the need for intensive language provision.

The afternoon sessions focussed on ESOL (English language teaching) and employment. Interesting speakers were:

Catherine Paulson-Ellis on ESOL from Dept for Business, Innovation & Skills. ESOL provision has been devolved to local authorities and free to those on Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) and 50% for others. It is heavily subsidised but subject to cuts. ESOL is important because it is directed towards employment and job skills and provides the qualifications employers look for (Entry level 1, 2, 3; Level 1, Level 2 equivalent to GCSE). The real challenge is with refugees who lack basic literacy in their own language. Women often have less formal schooling, lack confidence and find it hard to attend classes as they lack childcare. She spoke of the importance of supplementing the learning that takes place in the class environment with more creative approaches to helping refugees improve their English. Adult Education Services were, for example funding ‘Survival English’ delivered in home and in hostels, there is ‘embedded ESOL’ taking place in Children’s Centres and some schools now offer English classes for migrant parents. Innovative technology and community initiatives could help support provision.

Sheila Heard of Transitions, which places skilled refugees in private sector employment. 80% of refugees suffer long term unemployment this is 6 x the national average. 25% of arriving refugees are highly skilled. Transitions takes a collaborative approach with private sector and refugee organisations to broker placements with large companies that have often resulted in full time employment.

In between sessions we had moderated round table discussions. Some of the discussion and ideas generated at my table included:

Pre-arrival

• Focus on more appropriate placement (ie. match skills to location / urban > urban / rural > rural etc)
• Some degree of refugee choice in where they are settled
• Opportunities for community (including school) sponsorship directly from the camps (do this in Canada)
• More appropriate regional cultural orientation depending where in the UK they are going (vs. one size fits all whether London or Bute)
• Opportunities to start the process of welcome and hospitality before they leave (Skype / members of host community go and meet them)
• Need for crèches and childcare to allow women to focus on cultural orientation
• Opportunities for intensive language coaching prior to arrival

Arrival

Currently placement is ad hoc based on local authority offers and driven by available housing. For this reason London is being avoided despite more than half Syrian diaspora being in London. Better to allow refugees to be together in multi-cultural cities rather than dispersed and isolated?

• A more pro-active approach and programme of urban resettlement with city quotas
• Greater access to private landlords to provide accommodation where rent matches housing benefit
• Property deals to house refugees in unoccupied buildings (eg. City of London expressed interest – flats in the Barbican; example of Berlin housing projects)
• Procuring affordable housing through community sponsorship
• More acceptance of temporary solutions eg. spare rooms / Air BnB for refugees financed through housing benefit
• Buddy and befriending schemes as part of initial support package
• Group activities to share collective experiences and cultural orientation

ESOL

• More creative and interactive English provision – role-playing, drama
• More childcare or taking English to Mums in schools, crèches, baby & toddler groups etc
• Development of innovative online approaches – apps and enabling technology to deliver English
• Opportunities to practice conversational English eg. small, informal conversation classes, chat buddies etc., in the community

Employment

• More opportunities for refugee start-ups, self employment schemes etc
• Local opportunities for work experience and volunteering
• Deals with businesses who have high churn of staff to take on and train refugees
• Skills register and matchmaking service
• Community employment sponsorship schemes

And finally agreed indicators of successful integration including what success would look like from the refugee point of view and how to measure it – sense of security? gainful employment? sense of belonging? self-sufficiency? wellbeing?

All in all a thoughtful and provocative day with an eagerness to make resettlement and integration a better, more humane experience whilst acknowledging that the public sector cannot achieve (or afford) this without harnessing HUGE SUPPORT AND GOODWILL from local communities and volunteers.

Anneke Elwes
[email protected]