Opening Doors Improving housing services for refugees and new migrants

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Opening Doors Improving housing services for refugees and new migrants
Opening Doors
Improving housing services for
  refugees and new migrants

                   TOOLKIT
Opening Doors Improving housing services for refugees and new migrants
OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT

  As a housing provider, do you want to open your doors to working with
   refugee and migrant communities? – if so, this Toolkit will help you!

What is Opening Doors?
Over a period of two and a half years, with backing from the Tenant Services Authority and
Communities and Local Government, the Opening Doors project aimed to mainstream
approaches to meeting the housing needs of refugees and of other new migrant
communities. Jointly managed and delivered by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH)
and hact (Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust), Opening Doors built expertise among
11 housing associations and their strategic partners in six different areas of England. Details
of all the partners are given at the end of the Toolkit.

What is in the Toolkit?
This Toolkit aims to encourage other organisations to develop similar initiatives to Opening
Doors, by drawing on the insights and tools that have been developed by CIH, hact and the
Opening Doors partners. This Toolkit can help organisations starting new projects or
reorienting their service delivery, to meet the needs of refugees and new migrants.

Here are the 12 tools in the Toolkit with relevant links. Click on the live link in each case to
be directed to the relevant resource (or reopen the original pdf while connected to the
internet, if you have printed it out). At the end are details of further information, including
how to contact CIH or hact for further advice.

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Opening Doors Improving housing services for refugees and new migrants
OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT

1    GETTING STARTED

                                                       First of all, learn about how housing
                                                       associations got started with their work on
                                                       refugees and new migrants from Inside
                                                       Housing.

                                                       Download the article here

2    TRAINING

    Ten training modules were developed to help housing
    organisations train staff in understanding and providing
    services to refugees and migrants. They will need
    adapting and (possibly) updating to meet your local
    needs. Download the modules here

    One partner, St Vincent’s HA, condensed the material
    into awareness-raising sessions for all staff while
    ensuring that some key staff were on top of the more
    detailed information. The St Vincent’s HA staff training
    materials are here

3    SURVEYS AND LOCAL STUDIES

    Lots of other housing organisations, local authorities and regional bodies have carried out
    studies of the needs of new migrants. For Opening Doors, we summarised a sample of
    them and you can see a literature review here

    New information and research is appearing all the time. Your local Regional Strategic
    Migration Partnership may be a useful source of up-to-date information. They cover the
    English regions, Wales and Scotland and have their own web pages such as this one

    The best guide to local statistics and surveys is published by the Local Government
    Association – see ‘Where to get more information and guidance’ below.

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Opening Doors Improving housing services for refugees and new migrants
OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT

4    FINDING OUT ABOUT NEEDS IN MORE DETAIL

    Surveys can only tell you so much – you will need to talk to new communities themselves.
    Following research by Salford University about new migrants’ awareness of housing options,
    St Vincent’s HA set up and carried out some focus groups. These have gathered information
    on how new migrant workers find out about their housing and other needs. Read about
    what they did here

    Longhurst Homes employed an East European development worker when their contract
    with the local authority came to an end so as to build better understanding of the needs of
    the new migrant population. The worker proved vital in establishing contact with local
    migrant communities. Find out more from the evaluation report

5    ENTITLEMENTS TO HOUSING

    How do you know if someone who is a refugee or new migrant is entitled to get housing
    or be helped if they are homeless? This is a complex area. At the outset of the project we
    identified that frontline housing staff needed a source of clear, concise and up-to-date
    information. Most studies have also highlighted a need for better information targeted at
    new migrants themselves. The Opening Doors housing rights website gives you up-to-date
    guidance. Check it out at www.housing-rights.info

    CIH did research in 2008 into the use made by migrants of social housing, which may be
    useful in dispelling myths.

6    USING ACTION LEARNING

                                                     Opening Doors partners worked together
                                                     in four ‘Action Learning Sets’ which
                                                     supported and challenged their work,
                                                     enabling them to build on each others’
                                                     experiences.

                                                     Find out more about Action Learning Sets
                                                     here

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Opening Doors Improving housing services for refugees and new migrants
OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT

7    PROVIDING HOMES

                                                              New homes for refugees are
                                                              being provided by partners
                                                              Tuntum, Staffordshire and Accord.

                                                              Find out more here

8    SERVICES FOR REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS

    Housing providers can do much more than provide housing:
    • St Vincent’s set up a driving course based at their Urban Care Centre
    • Tuntum HA set up a floating support service called Refugee Futures
    • Tuntum and other Opening Doors partners take part in the annual Refugee Week
    • Horton Housing provides a central referral point for refugees to get housing and related
      advice following a decision on their asylum application, as well as a generic refugee
      support service at Bevan House

9    THE GATEWAY PROTECTION PROGRAMME

    The ‘Gateway’ programme aims to
    support settlement of refugees coming
    direct to the UK from overseas refugee
    camps, supported by the United Nations
    High Commission for Refugees.

    Learn about how local authorities and
    housing providers have responded to
    Gateway from pages 27-28 of the
    Opening Doors report, and learn more
    about the Gateway programme here

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Opening Doors Improving housing services for refugees and new migrants
OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT

10    GOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR REFUGEE INTEGRATION

                                                The government runs a new service across the
                                                UK called RIES (Refugee Integration and
                                                Employment Service). Opening Doors partners
                                                learnt about RIES and made contact with their
                                                local providers.

                                                Find out more yourselves here and read about
                                                the challenges of dealing with housing needs in
                                                hact’s report Insights into the SUNRISE experience
                                                available here

11    A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO SERVICES FOR REFUGEES AND NEW MIGRANTS

     None of this work can be done in isolation. Housing providers need to work together, and
     in collaboration with local authorities. Ideally there should be a strategic approach to
     identifying the needs of new migrants and to working with new communities to adapt and
     provide services for them. Earlier in the Toolkit the Regional Strategic Migration Partnerships
     were mentioned – they are key to a strategic approach. But the needs of refugees and
     migrants should also be built into local strategies.

     In Southampton, one of the Opening Doors partner areas, this was done and this report
     tells you how.

12    THE OPENING DOORS PROJECT

     Finally, do you want to see in detail what the partners did and
     how it worked out?

     Download the full Opening Doors report from the hact website

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Opening Doors Improving housing services for refugees and new migrants
OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT

WHERE TO GET MORE INFORMATION AND GUIDANCE

  Below are some of the key sources that were used in Opening Doors, and links to where to
  get them.

  From CIH and hact
  Housing and Support Services for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A good practice guide –
  available from CIH at www.cih.org/publications/pub357.htm

  Community Cohesion and Housing: A good practice guide – available from CIH at
  www.cih.org/publications/pub655.htm

  Accommodate – details of five practical local partnerships established to improve services
  for refugees and involve and support refugee community organisations
  www.hact.org.uk/downloads.asp?PageId=89

  Communities R Us – material from the project which aims to build better relationships
  between long-established and new communities
  www.hact.org.uk/downloads.asp?PageId=155

  Government and other sources
  Crossing Borders: Responding to the local challenges of migrant workers – available from
  the Audit Commission with other resources at
  www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nationalstudies/communitysafety/crossingborders/
  Pages/Default_copy.aspx

  Managing the Impacts of Migration: A cross-government approach – available from CLG at
  www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/migrationimpact

  Estimating the Scale and Impacts of Migration at Local Level – available from the LGA at
  www.lga.gov.uk/lga/publications/publication-display.do?id=22422

  Home from Home – Addressing the issues of migrant workers’ housing – available from
  BSHF at www.bshf.org/published-information/publication.cfm?thePubID=
  2EED9E14-15C5-F4C0-998CFFEC3D54FF93

  Web pages
  New European Migration toolkit and other material – available from IDeA (registration required)
  www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=6949778

  Statistics, briefing papers and much more on asylum and refugees from ICAR
  www.icar.org.uk/

  Information on migrants’ rights from the Migrant Rights Network
  www.migrantsrights.org.uk/

  If you want to contact CIH or hact direct, email policyandpractice@cih.org or hact@hact.org.uk

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Opening Doors Improving housing services for refugees and new migrants
OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT

Who were the OD partners?

Chartered Institute of Housing                               www.cih.org
hact                                                         www.hact.org.uk

Bradford
Accent Group                                                 www.accentgroup.org
Horton Housing                                               www.hortonhousing.co.uk
Manningham HA                                                www.manninghamhousing.co.uk

Birmingham
Accord Housing Group                                         www.accordha.org.uk
Represented by
Birmingham Cooperative Housing Services                      www.bchs.org.uk

Southampton
First Wessex Housing Group                                   www.firstwessexhg.co.uk

Nottingham and Lincolnshire
Tuntum HA                                                    www.tuntum.co.uk
Longhurst Homes                                              www.longhurst-group.org.uk

Bolton
St Vincent’s HA                                              www.svha.co.uk

Stoke-on-Trent
Blue Mountain HA and Staffordshire HA                        www.staffshousing.org.uk

© Chartered Institute of Housing and Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust 2009

Design by: Jeremy Spencer
Photographs courtesy of Longhurst Homes, hact (Paula Solloway), St Vincent’s HA and Tuntum HA

While all reasonable care and attention has been taken in compiling this publication, the publishers regret that
they cannot assume responsibility for any error or omissions that it contains.
The publishers give permission for this document to be reproduced or transmitted either in its entirety or
partially, providing that the publishers and the source are acknowledged.

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