Vision | Outcomes | Harnessing | Aim | Hubs | Information Flows | Hiraeth | Setting up a Hub

The Link International Innovation March 2022 Storyboard

 Vision Statement

‘To create a better everyday life for the many people from Ukraine who are settled in North Wales by mobilising the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.’

Top

Working definition

Community mobilisation is the process of bringing together as many stakeholders as possible to raise people's awareness of and demand for a particular programme, to assist in the delivery of resources and services, and to strengthen community participation for sustainability and self-reliance. A lot can be achieved when people from different parts of the community share a common goal and actively participate in both identifying needs and being part of the solution. Community mobilisation helps to empower communities and enable them to initiate and control their own development:

• Bring people together

• Raise people’s awareness

• Assist in the delivery of resources and services

• Facilitate and strengthen community participation

Community mobilisation should bring together stakeholders in the community, e.g. Refugee families, family members/sponsors, self-help groups,  community members, local authorities, local leaders, decision- and policy-makers, to address barriers within the community and ensure the successful inclusion of refugees

A strong focus on communities taking a lead role in development activities rather than just being the receivers of grants and services.

Desirable Outcomes

1. Communities are aware about the needs, and motivated to improve the quality of life, of refugees and their families.

2. Barriers in the community are reduced or removed for refugees and their family members.

3. Communities are knowledgeable about community based hubs and how community resources can be used to develop and sustain community based programmes.

4.  Communities participate in planning, implementing and managing community based programmes

Harnessing and Filtering

A chaotic sketch to create some future order!

Top

We have a whole stack of stuff which needs filtering through a funnel:

• the 4 pathways Ukrainians come to UK/Wales - information provided by UK/WG - landing randomly in host homes and strategically in Welcome Centres

• the statuary responsibility of 6 counties across N Wales with their range of demographic and geographic characteristics

• an increasing myriad of 3rd Sector and public goodwill groups and individuals

The Aim of the Mobilisation Map

1. to give every Ukrainian equal access to LA support - health care, education, benefits, work etc

2. the best experience of coming to live in our communities - social & cultural - friendship - clubs - activities etc

Local Authorities via each LA

• health care,

• education,

• benefits,

• jobs

• housing

The key element required is an interface between LAs and LII the purpose of this would be for LII to gather the 3rd Sector and Local Goodwill around a model of support - the ‘Community Hub’ model. LII then could keep the voluntary sector informed and the LAs supported with co-ordinated volunteer resources, as required.

From an LA Lead - an example of harnessing community resources

“….we need to collate a pool of resources who can provide interpreter support to both the Welcome Centre and/or sponsored households across North Wales. The vision is that the best placed resource would be tasked to provide support to a family or families, to support them as they navigate on line services around school admissions, GP appointments and securing benefits from DWP. In addition they would be able to gauge the lived experience of the family and make sure we are meeting all their needs.

A requirement would be that interpreters would, as a minimum, undertaken the volunteer DBS accreditation and enhanced DBS if they are supporting children. As a volunteer these programmes are free to access. We would also agree to pay the team reasonable expenses for mileage and out of pocket expenses”. 

Shaping the Community Hubs

As well as benefitting from the wrap-around care and support that each County is offering, there are resources that will inevitably cross county boundaries and we need to build in this approach to fluidity as boundaries are often blurred.

There are three obvious ways to achieve this:

1. Via the County Voluntary Councils working in conjunction with WCVA

2. Via BCUHB and specifically its Community Support Hubs - this will facilitate interpreters and counsellors to be made available to all Counties from 3rd Sector providers

3. The Church in Wales - St Asaph and Bangor Dioceses

If we look at a bottom up approach, each community has a Church in Wales facility, these facilities are grouped into Ministry/Mission Areas and Mission Areas are grouped not Diocese. Looking at a map of St Asaph and Bangor Dioceses, they are geographically very similar to the 6 LAs.

The Church in Wales is also connected to most denominations via Cytun. So using this organisation it could be possible to allow fluid boundaries between LA’s whilst each LA can maintain its own integrity for funding accountability.

Also using our network across the churches via the Diocesan Offices (& Cytun) we can communicate with every local hub effectively.

Top

Intelligence Pathways | information flows

This is essentially the role that Link International Innovation is offering - establish Local Community Hubs and harness two way intelligence: bottom up and top down.

By forming Local Community Hubs with clear flows of intelligence between the statutory provision made available via the Counties together with the para-county organisations harnessing 3rd Sector and volunteer offerings, we will be able to give Ukrainians, coming to live in our communities, the very best experience and an opportunity to thrive.

Hiraeth Effect

“Many of the needs of the Ukrainian People in Wales can be best met by Ukrainians themselves”

We understand that as the many people from Ukraine come to Wales, they will have a deep sense of longing for their homes and their homeland. Our desire is that they feel so welcome, and have such a deep sense of belonging, that when they return to Ukraine, to visit or to resettle, they have hiraeth for the land this word belongs to.

We have a venue in Conwy available for hosting events for Ukrainians and forms a key resource for developing the Hiraeth Programme in Conwy. These events will be fully funded and serviced via Link International Friends and funding streams.

ideas for setting up a local community welcome and support hub

Top