Health grants for organisations

Organisation

Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants

Cloudesley grant

2020 – £90,000 (£30,000 per year for three years) from the Principal Grants Fund

About the Organisation

Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants (ICRM) provides migrants, refugees and asylum seekers with access to the services and support they need to enable them to integrate into the community and lead full lives. The Centre provides a range of integrated services and activities that meet the complex and multiple needs of its users using the skills of staff and local volunteers. Almost all of their users have mental health issues, and many have experienced human rights abuses as well as a traumatic journey before arriving in the UK. These services help to reduce mental distress, improve physical health and enable them to gain independence and integration.

Project Funded

Funding is towards the Support Service which offers advice and advocacy to asylum seekers and refugees to access health services and helps to resolve multiple issues such as homelessness and unemployment.

The Support Service aims to support people over three years to:

1. Access healthcare – Clients will be supported to receive HC2 forms which enable them to receive free prescriptions and healthcare. They will be supported to register with a GP and access clinics that are willing to treat them regardless of their immigration status. Clients will receive therapy for mental trauma and financial support to travel to medical appointments.
2. Benefit from practical and emotional support – clients will be supported over the long term to tackle the multiple disadvantages they face. The issues they will be supported to overcome include insecure immigration status, housing, income, seeking education or health.

Impact of Project

The project has provided a range of activities that have enabled people to progress. These include:

• 25 people provided with access to Health care
• 127 asylum seekers given support packaged of food, essential travel and toiletries
• 4 pregnant women supported to access Home Office help and antenatal care
• 15 people supported through the immigration system.
• 25 people given technical skills to access online session, improving their digital access

What the group says

The Support Service is an essential part of what we offer to clients. It is how we are able to help deal with clients’ issues on an individual and targeted basis and respond to the broad range of problems that clients face on a day to day basis. It involves working with clients on accessing healthcare and on all the factors which can impact on mental and physical health, including housing, accessing benefits, asylum and immigration cases, education and much more. The trusting relationship we build with clients across all of our activities and services places us in a position where clients share their issues and seek help with confidence.

The Cloudesley perspective – why did this project gain support?

The project fit well with the Fund’s focus on addressing health inequalities amongst people experiencing multiple disadvantages.

Navigating the asylum and immigration system in the UK is incredibly difficult as it is complex and characterised by a ‘culture of disbelief’.  Clients are supported with their applications to challenge denied Home Office decisions and accompanied to immigration appointments for emotional support.

The organisation helps to find GPs, sexual health clinics and other specialised services that can treat people with insecure immigration status.  As current Cloudesley Partners (Cloudesley’s crisis grants scheme for individuals), they are able to pay for clients’ travel expenses to attend essential health appointments. ICRM helps people to find sustainable accommodation, for example through schemes such as Refugee Hosting Families or in a hostel.

Photo provided by ICRM