Video: Nataliya Vanstone, Caseworker Coordinator, The Pickwell Foundation

This scheme gives an incredible opportunity to provide a place of safety and sanctuary at an extraordinarily challenging time for the Ukrainian people. We are so glad you are thinking of taking this amazing step and hope this page might give you some helpful resources, tips and thoughts. Here we outline some of the things to consider, to give the best chance of providing a sustainable place of safety for those you are sponsoring or supporting. It includes links to other pages on the site where more detailed information can be found. We also consider a potential timeline of what would be helpful during the early weeks of resettlement.

We know from experience, that hosting in your own home can be tough after a while and so we would love to encourage you to take a moment to think through some tough but important questions before you start. We hope this might save some difficulties or smooth out bumps further down the line. We find that those who have thought through these questions feel more equipped. There are links throughout the questions linking to further information.

*We are strongly recommending that each sponsor who welcomes a family to a home, whether or not they will be living with them, chooses a team of between 4-10 local people to act as their ‘support group’.

Ideally in that group there would be a mix of someone with transport available for lifts, someone who is good with practical aspects like banking and form-filling and someone who is good with emotional care and well-being.

If an individual cannot find their support group, then we can help with that through our database.

Each sponsor/support team member can find training through useful resources and guides through this website and also through some hosted Zoom calls offering support for specific aspects of care from Trauma through to applying for benefits.

Will sponsoring work for you?

Do you have the capacity? An obvious question, but whatever household structure you have (whether you are an individual, couple, family or other household group) do you have the time, the energy, the resources and the flexibility required to successfully sponsor? Will it work for everyone in the household? How will it affect existing relationships in the house? Consider other house sharing experiences that you have had, some people are better at sharing space with others and its good to be realistic about your own personalities! Talk to everyone in your household and make a plan of how you will accommodate each other’s needs with the arrival of your new guests.

Is now the right time?

For some who would love sponsor it is important to ask yourselves, is it the right season of life right now? This might, for example; be because of the age of children; demands of work; supporting other family members or perhaps personal health. It is good to properly consider all your other demands and whether now is the right time to sponsor or whether there might be other ways that you can support

How long can you commit for?

Although the minimum commitment for sponsoring is for 6 months, people will need accommodation for much longer and they have an initial right to remain for 3 years. How long are you able to sponsor for? What factors are likely to change in the coming months that you need to consider? What will the situation be like in one year, two years perhaps? How would you manage asking your guests to move on if you need to? What other housing option to you think they are likely to have in that scenario? Successful resettlement often involves beginning with the end in mind. 

“Supporting Community Sponsors and now hosting myself has been a continuous journey of meeting and getting to know amazing, inspiring people, both those coming to the UK and those extending welcome to newcomers. I’ve learned, I’ve grown as a person, I’m thankful for being part of it.” Tomasz Muszynski Reset Uk”

Is the Property in the right location?

It might be that you are the right person or right people at the right time to sponsor, but you also have to consider whether your accommodation is in the right location to provide a sustainable place of resettlement. Much of Northern Devon is in rural or semi-rural and you have to consider whether you have the right services and transport network to allow life to be sustainable. Are you in a suitable location for accessing school places, healthcare, employment, English lessons? Are you in a location where people can access everything they need to build an independent life with their own social network? This may just mean that you think about the sort of people groups you offer accommodation to, so if you are in a very rural location, a young person who can drive/ work from home would be better than a young family?

Managing boundaries

Every household has unspoken rules about how it operates – these cover a myriad of things from meal times to down times; noise levels to visitors; bathroom habits to TV control. Consider what spoken or unspoken rules that your household works by and how you would manage or flex these boundaries. Crucial questions like how will it work with food, cooking, transport, finances?

“Bridges Communities video - Nic Hope from b.friend takes Jennie out for coffee and gets the lowdown on Ukrainian people, culture and life. A great resource for anyone welcoming Ukrainians to the UK, or anyone who wants an inside story from one of our wonderful Ukrainian friends”

Who will support you?

Sponsoring can be very rewarding but it is also very demanding. This is where your support group will come into their own. Having a small but dependable group of local hero’s around you, will mean you can talk together and provide the best care for both yourself and your guests.

So having considered the tough questions, if you feel this is not going to work for you as a sponsor, but you are still keen to help, do sign up to help others and be a part of their support group. Families will need support, schools will need support and there are plenty of volunteering opportunities. Just put your details of what you feel you can do on our form and we will be in touch.

For those of you who feel you can make it work, here are some tried and tested ideas of things that may help the beginning go smoothly.

We would like to invite you to explore the rest of the website that is populated with information to help you and your support group to settle and orientate your guest. You may find the timeline/checklist below useful, as it highlights what we have found helpful to focus on first.

Sponsor Toolkit

Our brilliant friends and colleagues over at RESET have produced this Sponsor Toolkit with lots of extra information which we think you’ll find useful. We particularly like this flow diagram which helps us to understand the steps before the Local Authority, and us get involved.

Keeping everyone safe

The Importance of Safeguarding and reporting can be found below;