The Together programme has launched a new service supporting Afghan evacuees living in bridging accommodation in London as well as the Afghan refugee communities living across London.
This service supports members of the Afghan community with their emotional wellbeing needs, English language, digital skills, creative activities and employment advice.
Focus areas:
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- WELLBEING SUPPORT: Our wellbeing sessions are underpinned by a provision of practical casework, group wellbeing sessions and 1:1 activities. The sessions focus on psychoeducational support, mindful wellbeing arts sessions and practical stress management tips.
- LANGUAGE:Our conversational English language sessions in a friendly, low-pressured environment, as well as English for driving theory.
- DIGITAL SKILLS: Our digital skills classes enable participants to learn how to use laptops as well as a variety of online programmes.
- CREATIVE ACTIVITIES : Our creative activities bring people together through arts and crafts such as jewellery making and painting. These sessions allow people to practise their English, build confidence and make new friends.
- EMPLOYMENT ADVICE: Our employment advisor offers 1:1 employment advice to help Afghan residents with the next stages of their career journey. We work collaboratively with local authority staff and organisations at bridging accommodation in identifying and addressing residents’ needs.
- CASEWORK: Going the distance, putting in the hours, focusing on building trust and relationship, and creating space to simply listen.
Read more about the value of our casework
Digital Skills
Laptops4Learning has supported Groundwork by supplying laptops to the project so that the team can deliver in-person digital skills training to Afghan refugees. It is fantastic that we could use refurbished laptops in order to reduce waste!
We identified a need for digital skills support among the hotel residents as many didn’t have access to a computer or laptop, making it difficult to look for education, work or volunteering opportunities, and access important services like online banking or the GP.
Based on this feedback, Isobel joined the project as a full time Digital Skills Tutor to offer digital skills sessions. We then reached out to Laptops4Learning for the crucial technology needed to run the sessions.
Click the link below to read the full blog and find out more!
Case Studies
Wellbeing Resource
This booklet is aimed at individuals within the Afghan community and is presented as a series of simple grounding and mindfulness techniques to practice in times of heightened stress or anxiety and to slowly build resilience.
The booklet brings together the resources faciltiated across a short series of psychoeducation workshops with Afghan residents in local bridging accommodation. Each activity is translated into Dari and Pashto and uses pictures and images as much as possible for individuals who find this more accessible.
The booklet closes with a QR code, linking to explanatory video guides – English, and Dari and Pashto – through which our wellbeing facilitators guide the individual through the grounding exercises.
It can be used individually or in groups and is best practiced to build up familiarity with the activities. The booklet begins with a short reminder of some of the physical symptoms of our stress response, to help normalise/improve our understanding of what stress can look and feel like.
Transitional Support Plans
Over the course of the last 6 months, our Afghan Response project teams have been assisting Afghan individuals and families who are moving on from bridging accommodation in London. We have prepared bespoke support plans around each family and individual, based on their identified needs, concerns and questions as they move into a new area. We’ve reached out to prospective signposting partners locally, in preparation for the move, and created a plan of support to help the family settle into their new home as quickly as possible. We’ve also been providing transitional support sessions remotely, post-move, to help them with signposting into the services most needed.
We wanted to share a summary of the each of the transitional support plans with you. We’ve edited them to make them broadly applicable to any individual or family moving into the area, and have created thematic areas of support:
- General support (Housing, Legal, Welcome and Welfare)
- Healthcare and Wellbeing
- Education
- Employment
Eleven areas have been identified in the course of our project. Of course, these are not the only areas that the Afghan community will be moving to. We’ve therefore added a ‘National Services’ section at the start. This follows the same thematic areas as above, but includes services that can offer signposting and advice in England, Scotland and Wales.
This resource is only available in English, and is best used with an English-speaking family members, friend, or support worker. We hope you will find it helpful.
