Transcript

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

Hi, I’m Jeanette Copperman, one of the authors on K271 and the author of this Learning Guide. I’m here in Luton talking to Katy Eagle, who’s a social worker with Embrace Life. Katy, could you tell us a little bit about your role as a social worker in Luton?

KATY EAGLE

So I’m a social worker with Embrace Life which is a voluntary service in Luton. We support people who are living with HIV and also people who identify as LGBT. We work with people in a voluntary role so very different to statutory services. We work with people holistically, looking at their needs, so that could be anything from housing, immigration, their physical and mental health and a lot of work we do is with people who don’t meet the threshold for statutory intervention and a lot of preventative work as well, with people who hopefully resolve some of the struggles they’re having before things escalate.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

Can you give us some examples of the people you work with , the kind of issues that they face?

KATY EAGLE

So we work with a huge variety of people. We work with families and children, we work with single adults, we work with older people and we work with people who have long term health problems, people who face a huge amount of stigma from the community around the conditions that they have. People who are very very socially isolated because of the conditions they have or they physically can’t get out much. And we are a safe space, we run a drop in for them to come and spend time with people that they know are going to be friendly and supportive. We work with people who identify as LGBT and so a huge amount of UK nationals, some young people who maybe their family aren’t so accepting, but also people who are arriving in the UK seeking asylum on those grounds and people who, therefore, will be living pretty much in poverty, people who have no connection with their family anymore, people who are very isolated.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

How did you get involved in this area of law, it can be quite a daunting area of law for social workers to be involved with?

KATY EAGLE

It can be a daunting area of law, it changes very quickly, there’s been a lot in the rules recently about policy changes. But I came to this area of work before I trained as a social worker, I was a volunteer for a voluntary organisation - The British Red Cross - working with refugees and asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants and from then I went on to train as a social worker and now I’m here with another voluntary organisation. Yeah.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

How do you enjoy your job?

KATY EAGLE

I really enjoy my job. We work with a huge amount of people whose support elsewhere is quite limited so I think what we do here is really valuable in being a safe space for people to come and talk, for being a friendly face to come and talk to in the same way that maybe they wouldn’t talk to a social worker form statutory services that they perceive as having more power, more authority and making very different decisions in relation to them. We see some really difficult cases, we see people who are really, really struggling and people who are in some awful situations. But we also see some really lovely situations and people helping their neighbours, charities that do some brilliant work, and people whose lives change very much for the better when they get asylum, when they get immigration status granted and suddenly they come back and tell us that they found a job, they’ve moved away and tell us they don’t need us anymore, but in a really nice way, kind of “thanks, I’ve moved on now”….which is nice as well!

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

Within your role as a social worker here, you meet a lot of people who are at a point of crisis, what immediate support needs do you think they have?

KATY EAGLE

So we see a lot of people who do come to us a the point of crisis, they come to us when their support networks have broken down, and they’re no longer managing on their own. We very often work with people to look at their most basic needs first. People need somewhere safe to stay, people need food, people need to stay warm and dry, people need clothes. We also hand out things that people don’t like to ask for, we hand out sanitary towels to people and we offer them because otherwise people will not ask. We work with food banks and charities in the area to make sure that people have got really basic needs.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

And what support is available to asylum seekers and refugees who come to the UK?

KATY EAGLE

Support for asylum seekers and refugees and vulnerable migrants can be quite limited. They very often have a condition called “no recourse to public funds” attached to their status and that means that they’re not able to apply for any benefits or to apply for any social housing, so, most of the time, it means that people are reliant on charities, friends and family support networks, voluntary organisations, churches and mosques that will help them. Asylum seekers that have got a claim with the Home Office that they are considering and are eligible, are often able to apply for very limited accommodation through the Home Office and a very small amount of money but the criteria for it are very very tight.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

This is quite a complex area of law, how does the law impact on the work you do? And what legislation would you say is key?

KATY EAGLE

So there’s a number of bits of legislation that are relevant to what we do and we have be mindful of particularly the Immigration and Asylum Act that defines who is an asylum seeker and who is approaching getting legal status to be in the UK. We also have to consider the Children Act and the Care Act which defines the support available for children and families and to adults. And we also consider things like the Mental Health Act which defines who is eligible for mental health after care and support and also more specialist bits of legislation like the Modern Slavery Act that looks at who has been exploited in the UK or who has arrived in circumstances that amount to trafficking or slavery.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

What issues do you think social workers need to be particularly aware of when it comes to the law on asylum and immigration?

KATY EAGLE

So I would say that social workers need to have a broad understanding of immigration and asylum law and some of the issues around that, and also an understanding of what “no recourse to public funds” means and what it does mean that somebody can’t have access to and actually what it doesn’t affect, what somebody can have support. We also find that most people we work with that are going through the asylum and immigration process are very fearful, they’re very afraid of how they are perceived in the UK and the consequences for them of watching over their shoulder, feeling that they’re being monitored by the Home Office all the time and being understanding of that is really really important for us.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

You mentioned people being fearful and sometimes having perhaps to wait a long time for decisions on their status, what do you think is important in terms of social work support during that period?

KATY EAGLE

So people can wait a very long time for decisions and even if they’re waiting what the Home Office might consider a short time, for somebody waiting for what can be the biggest decision of their life, it can feel like forever. We offer a lot of emotional support to people in that time, a lot of what we do is talking to people and helping them find ways to manage their fears and their anxieties. Sometimes we do refer people to talking therapies because the fear does become such a big factor in their life.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

Is the law different when it comes to adults and to caring for children?

KATY EAGLE

So the Children’s Act, in particular, says that the needs of the child have got to be paramount and so in cases where a family are seeking immigration status or are seeking asylum and they have children that could otherwise face sleeping on the streets or becoming destitute, the family can be provided for through section 17 of the Children Act as a child in need. But unfortunately there isn’t an equivalent piece of legislation for adults unless they’re human rights were being breached in some way. But it’s more difficult to get that for adults than for children.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

What kind of advice can a social worker give when it comes to immigration and what do you think a social worker cannot give as well?

KATY EAGLE

Immigration advice in the UK is actually quite tightly regulated by an organisation called the Offices of the Immigration Services Commissioner which is usually just callee OISC registration. And so to give anyone, social workers or solicitors or anyone, to give immigration advice has to be registered with that body. So we can’t give people advice on if we think they should apply for asylum, what we think they should include in their claim, but what social workers can give advice on is: knowing the communities, so where can people go for help around housing, food parcels, medical support, where can people go to meet their own needs rather than advice around the specifics of their actual immigration case.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

And what kind of services for immigration advice and for other services do you refer people to?

KATY EAGLE

We work quite closely with some solicitors in Luton who are able to offer kind of short appointments for advice and they will usually do that free of charge. We also work with a huge variety of other voluntary services in Luton, that work specifically with refugees and asylum seekers and also that support people with other issues that we refer to. We work quite closely with food-bank in Luton, with mental health support charities and with organisations such as the British Red Cross that provide support directly to refugees and asylum seekers.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

Do you believe there’s a hostile environment for immigrants to this country?

KATY EAGLE

I hear a lot from the immigrants that I work with that they do feel that the environment in the UK, particularly for people going through the asylum and immigration process, can be hostile. They face NHS charges, they face not being able to have a driving licence which, driving aside, can create problems around ID and showing who you are. Earlier in the year there was notice that banks would have to start checking immigration status. You can no longer rent a property or a room in the UK if you don’t have the legal right to do so and landlords are now checking. And people tell us that that all adds up to feeling like quite a hostile environment. I also hear a lot from the people I work with about the impact of the media and some of the headlines they see that they feel are then labelled about people coming to the UK for benefits, for housing, to take people’s jobs, which has a huge impact on the way that they feel they are perceived by communities in the UK.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

In your role have you come across modern day slavery and trafficking and what can you, as a social worker, do?

KATY EAGLE

So in my role here we have come across modern slavery. A lot of people that we work with, the nature of their immigration status and the insecurity of that means that they are quite vulnerable to being exploited, either after they’ve arrived in the UK or they’ve actually been exploited on their way and they’ve been trafficked into the UK to begin with. As a voluntary agency our biggest role is to be aware of the signs, to look out for what’s going on and to get to know people so that they can trust us enough to tell us what is going on. We often seek advice through a national helpline for modern slavery and we’ve also reported to the police where we’ve had concerns. So, for example, I know within the voluntary services that we work alongside in Luton, people have come across situations of domestic servitude where people have been treating somebody within their home in conditions that would amount to modern slavery. We also hear of people who’ve been sexually exploited and either bought to the UK seemingly for that purpose or have become vulnerable and exploited in that way once they’ve arrived here. We also hear from other organisations that we work alongside in Luton that lots of people arrive at Luton airport on the pretence that they’ve been promised jobs, that they’ve been promised accommodation, that they’ve been promised support when they get here and that doesn’t materialise. People end up in some really desperate situations in Luton because things don’t work out in the UK as either they thought they were promised or they thought things would be.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

Can you give us some examples of the kind of cases that you come across?

KATY EAGLE

So we work with a lot of people who’ve maybe been waiting for their asylum claim to be decided for quite some time and that’s having an impact on their mental health, how well they’re managing to cope. We see people as well who’ve maybe overstayed a visa maybe because their own circumstances have changed while they’ve been in the UK, or circumstances have changed back in their home country while they’ve been in the UK. We see people who maybe their physical health has deteriorated and so where they were able to look after themselves, that’s now changed. We see people who find themselves pregnant and might have been able to look after themselves but with a baby on the way and then the task of looking after a baby are no longer able to manage.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

As a social worker, what would you say are the dos and don’ts in this area?

KATY EAGLE

In terms of dos: Be compassionate, be considerate of the needs that people have, the difficulties that they will have been through. They’ll be separated from their family who may be in their home country, who they might be very concerned about. They may well have seen civil war on their way. Be compassionate and remember what people could have been through. Also, know your own area, your own community really well. Who is out there? What legal services are there? What solicitors in the area offer advice? What charities are there? What do your local churches offer? Who is willing to help in your area? And also be prepared to advocate for people’s rights, that if people are being told “you have no recourse to public funds, you can’t have this”, is that true or is that an assumption on the part of the service provider?

In terms of don’ts: Don’t give legal advice that you’re not qualified or able to do so! It’s very easy to do with the best of intentions to say to somebody “oh why don’t you try this”, but actually if you’re not registered to do so, don’t fall into that trap. Don’t make judgements about why somebody has found themselves destitute in a country far from home. And don’t label people. We see referrals all the time where somebody has written ‘somebody’s an illegal immigrant’ and that’s not a legal term, it’s not particularly helpful and labelling somebody as illegal is really hurtful for that person.

JEANETTE COPPERMAN

What would be your 5 top tips for social workers and social work students working with asylum seekers, migrants and refugees?

KATY EAGLE

So, in no particular order, the top 5 tips:

Know what’s in your area, know who’s around, know what charities there are and work with voluntary organisations that are able to help people in often some quite creative ways

Number 2: have a broad understanding of asylum and immigration issues and kind of the issues in the news from around the world that will bring people to the UK. We’ve seen people who’ve arrived from Syria, from previous conflicts in Afghanistan and having a basic understanding of the background of some of those issues can be really important.

Know where people can get legal advice is really important. Immigration law and policy changes really quickly, so knowing where people can go for up to date, reputable advice is really really important.

Number 4: consider the impact of trauma and loss and separation on people. Lots of people will move to the UK for jobs, lots of people move round the world and get on really well, but lots of people, particularly seeking asylum or looking to be refugees will have seen horrendous situations in their home country, will have lost their family. Maybe if they’re seeking asylum on the grounds of their sexuality, their family will have quite deliberately cut contact or will have been the risk factor that’s made them flee.

And finally know the terminology. Know what words are used, know the right kind of terms to use in relation to refugees and asylum seekers to avoid labelling people and also so that information is accurately passed onto other agencies.