Routes project

The work of the project

The Routes Project provides support to international new arrivals and families with children  aged between 0-19, 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.

Our work changes constantly. Seeking asylum is an ever changing process; characterised by insecurity and transience. The families are at different stages within this process.

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, 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

Over the last twelve months to December 2006 we received referrals from 473 families.

More than half of all referrals have come from the local authority concerning families who were known to have been recently dispersed to the city. 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, Diversity and Inclusion team, MARIM, Manchester Council for Community Relations 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 are currently involved in Manchester City Council's "Sense of Place" consultation in which we asks young people to reflect on  their experiences of life in Manchester. We take 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 future is bright, as our service is in more demand than ever. We now operate a partnership with EDNAST, 1st Base, ETS - all agencies working with international new arrivals. All partners share targets, monitoring and second staff to increase expertise and knowledge

Staff team

Our staff team has now expanded to 9, including 8 case workers.Project workers speak nine languages including swahili, Urdu, Somali and Polish . We use sessional interpreters where necessary.