The Routes Project
Read about the Manchester Community Outreach and Advice Partnership (MCOAP)
The Routes Project provides support to international new arrivals and families with children aged between 5- 13, newly arrived in Manchester. Many clients come from refugee and asylum seeking communities. We provide assistance to families to access mainstream support services such as schools, GPs, dentists, housing services, benefits advice etc. We also aim to help families become less isolated and excluded from society by meeting people from their home community and locally in the area where they are living. We work with families, providing emotional support, accessing services and advocating where services are limited or inaccessible. We provide information about the needs of international new arrivals, asylum seeking and refugee families to other services.
The support we offer can range from a brief intervention to help a family locate the right school for their child, to more detailed work. The support provided is linked directly to the needs of the family and these can sometimes be complex.
We tailor the support to meet the needs of each family. We have some families who are settled and many of their basic needs are met and they are now seeking to become involved in local activities and pursue special interests in sports and music etc.
Work with young people and families
From April 2007 to March 2008 we received referrals from 749 families. Approximately 455 of these referrals have come from the local authority. However we now receive referrals from a wide range of health and social care agencies, community groups and families themselves. The number of self referrals currently stands at almost 11%. We continuously strive to increase the number of self referrals.
Networking
A major part of our work is linking with other agencies. We have developed effective working relationships with other family support agencies, statutory and private accommodation providers, legal services, health professionals, schools, MARIM, Manchester School Admissions Team, International New Arrivals and Traveller Team and various other organisations both voluntary and statutory.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The Routes project has a culture of reflecting on practice and making changes to ensure the service provided matches the needs of the families.
We have both quantitative and qualitative methods of collecting data. We also monitor the kinds of services and support families are asking for.
Routes takes part in regular external evaluations in which it was found that “taking the families’ evidence in conjunction with the project’s own monitoring and evaluation data, there is no doubting that Routes is achieving its intended impact.
Families are asked to comment on the service and how it can be improved and some of the comments below reflect people’s views.
“I got services that I urgently need and more”.
“I was so appreciable to how your empowered me by giving the experience of how to support my self. You showed me many services available that I could not know without you”.
“I thank you for the generous service you provide me. Thanks million times.”
“Thanks for your concern and help”.
“If you come more early would have been better”.
Volunteers
Routes have an active volunteering programme to provide opportunities to work with this. We have been inundated with requests from people wanting to volunteer. We plan to involve refugee communities further in service provision and enhance the range of support we can offer.
Events
Routes have been involved with various initiatives throughout the city, to raise awareness of the needs of international new arrivals, asylum seekers and refugees in Manchester. We have recently published a report detailing the work of the Routes Project. ‘Out of the Lion’s Mouth’. The report highlighted the impact that the International New Arrivals Partnership had upon families migrating to Manchester. The Routes Project has also been held up as good practice by researchers from The University of Birmingham, who concluded that the Routes Project is accessible, flexible and provides holistic support that addresses diversity.
The Routes Project also takes part in Manchester's annual Refugee Week celebrations which sees agencies and communities across the city coming together and putting on creative events.
The Future
The Routes Project is passionate about continuing the work and helping international new arrivals to settle in Manchester. In the first quarter of the year, the Routes Project received 192 referrals. We are on target to increase the overall number of referrals for this year. The Routes Project is a key voluntary organisation within Manchester and we are striving to promote ourselves further.
Staff team
The team consists of 5 members of Staff. One coordinator, three Family Support workers and one administrator. The team is multi lingual, including the languages: Albanian, Somalian, Czech and Swahili.