A BREIFING

 

 

“London Enriched” - A Draft Strategy for Refugee Integration in London


This briefing is a summary of a draft Strategy for Refugee Integration in London, titled “London Enriched” produced in 2007, by the then London Mayor, Ken Livingstone after consultation with London’s statutory sector, key stakeholder, including refugee groups, London Councils & the Home Office. However the Strategy remains to be implemented and its status remains uncertain, mainly due to the change of the leadership last year.
Integration, in the Mayor’s view, meant equality of opportunity for refugees. It did not mean adapting to a norm. Instead it promoted respect for diversity and attempted to enable refugees to be themselves and live in London without danger. The Strategy starts with the uncertainty of verifying the exact refugee population resident in London and provides only an estimate of 0.5 million.


The strategy focused on six main themes:

 

  • Housing
  • Employment, training and enterprise
  • Health
  • Community safety
  • Children & young people
  • Community development, participation and funding

A summary is given below on the main themes. For a full reading of the document please visit the following link:


http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/equalities/immigration/docs/ref-int-strategy.pdf

 

Housing


Refugees face exceptional hardship in securing a home – the impact of years of insecurity and low – or no – income; lack of capital for a deposit; few household possessions; high forced mobility (including dispersal) making it difficult to get a foot on the housing ladder or establish a ‘local connection’; low level of knowledge and lack of good advice about how to access the housing market. The Strategy proposed the following steps to deal with the problem:

 

  • Developing a London-wide partners group with a housing focus
  • Promoting a more comprehensive Borough response, including training for front-line staff & monitoring of standards
  • Effective partnerships between mainstream housing providers and refugee groups

 

Employment, Training and Enterprise  (ETE)


A range of studies and surveys show that refugees experience much lower employment rates than other social groups. Challenges to employment include: difficulty verifying qualifications or converting qualifications to UK systems; limited knowledge of English prior to arrival; lack of knowledge, advice and support to enter the UK job market; high forced mobility; the UK asylum regime, which refuses to give asylum seekers permission to work while awaiting a decision; and reluctance by some employers to employ people whose immigration status they may not understand. To address the challenge the document proposed joint action under five headings:

 

  • ETE maps: Designing  maps indicating sequence of moves needed to reach particular employment goals, this guidance to be provided by an expert caseworker
  • Employers role: to provide placement, in-work training for job-ready refugee candidates and promote recruitment by involving community and voluntary sector
  • Skills: to audit and review existing  skills and qualifications prevalent in the refugee community and enhance training programmes
  • Enterprise: to support refugees in starting enterprises, enhance funding for starting business, and establish business mentors
  •  Informal economy: explore refugees’ experience of jobs in the informal sector and examine what changes are needed to enable them to move from this sector into mainstream employment and  launch a pilot scheme to test pathways for refugees from irregular employment into the mainstream economy.

 

Health


Many refugees have experienced torture, physical and mental impact of war, isolation , poverty and forced displacement. These experiences can have long term damaging impact on a person’s health. Some health conditions are of particular concern to refugee communities, such as tuberculosis, mental health problems and HIV and AIDS.

 

The document proposed a comprehensive action programme with particular emphasis on dealing with

  • unequal access to health provisions for refugees as well as their employment within the NHS
  • mental health support
  • risk of chronic illnesses before and after asylum decisions
  • barriers that are specific to equalities groups with the refugee communities

 

An effective policy would mean:

  • re-identification of resources,
  • influencing policy change to improve refugees’ access to health and social care,
  • identifying and sharing good practice and
  •  monitoring progress

 

Community Safety


The document asserted that refugees face four major problems: They

  • face greater risk of becoming victims of crime and suffering the fear of it;
  • are less willing to seek protection from the police or other public agencies;
  • are less confident in offering information to the police orcoming forward as witnesses;
  • have fewer options for dealing with offending within their own communities.

 

In order to tackle the problems, the document proposed:

  • Better, accountable  and supportive relationship with the MPS
  • Recruitment of refugees to join the MPS
  • Improved reporting schemes
  • Reducing tension and isolation
  • Tackling ant-asylum hate
  • Changing immigration enforcement actions and building community confidence
  • Tackling Domestic violence in refugee communities
  • Tackling re-offending properly

 

 

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