Case study (2003 updated in 2005) The University of Leeds Refugee Support Network: encouraging non-participating students to volunteer

Context

During the academic year 2002-03 the University became involved in the Refugee Support Network (RSN), a self-help group set up by primary and secondary school teachers working with pupils whose first language is not English. The pupils come from different backgrounds, most being children of asylum seekers and refugees, others moving to the UK because of their parents' work, but all have immediate need of language support. The University is well placed to support such a demand due to the large numbers of international and language students.

Programme detail

The RSN has been extremely successful in recruiting previously low participating or non-participating volunteers. It has attracted a much higher percentage of international students (over 50%) and postgraduates (25%) than any of the University's other 15 volunteering programmes (5% and 3% respectively). The reasons for this are multifarious.

International students clearly see an opportunity to offer support using their first language. They often cite a lack of confidence in their own English as a barrier to volunteering on other projects. There is also an affinity and a desire to assist people that speak their own first language who have faced and continue to face deprivation and disadvantage.

Postgraduate students represent relatively low participation rates due to greater work commitments and lack of integration with the undergraduate student bodies and societies, as well as personal commitments, such as having a family. This programme has engaged the postgraduates as they were specifically targeted. One reason for this is that they include a higher percentage of international students than is found on undergraduate courses.

The project is now embedded in the volunteering prospectus and has become one of the University's most popular volunteering opportunities.

The RSN is delivered in a uniquely flexible and responsive way to take account of the changing situations and circumstances of the refugee and asylum-seeker population. Typically, refugee and asylum-seeker families are transient, often having to move to different homes and schools. They are also mainly housed in low demand social housing predominantly in areas of significant deprivation in the inner city. This situation is detrimental to planning; indeed, schools are not able to predict or plan when new pupils will arrive. Volunteers are therefore informed of these circumstances and are made aware that completing a placement may involve changing schools with the children or ending the support if the child is relocated out of the city.

All Campus Connect volunteers undergo compulsory training and Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks at the beginning of the academic year, prior to placement in school. However, as requests for languages are unpredictable and spontaneous, the RSN is reactive in finding the volunteers, and (unlike the other volunteer programmes) training and checking for this cohort of volunteers is an ongoing process.

Volunteers assist young people to assimilate in the classroom, improve their English and raise their confidence. They have also on occasions helped schools with translation and interpretation between the teachers and the parents. Children in some circumstances have better English language skills than their parents, and parents have used the support to ask questions about many other aspects of their lives.

The University has introduced a more flexible and reactive approach to accommodate the unique aspects of this project. Requests for languages continue to grow exponentially and each request is logged on a database. Equally volunteers may come forward with a particular first language that has not been requested; this is also inputted to ensure they can be matched if there is a request. The simplicity and flexibility of the RSN is its greatest asset, and fluency in a foreign language is the only prerequisite. In seeking to meet the demands for the many languages, volunteers have been recruited through personal contacts, student societies and even contacts from other universities and organisations. The diversity of participants is perhaps exemplified by Ana Canhao, a Portuguese social worker in Bradford who heard about the scheme through the Brazilian Society and has been volunteering at Bentley Primary School with two Angolan children. Transport costs are also covered, enabling volunteers to travel safely and quickly to local schools, which has helped to overcome the concerns about travel time and safety.

To date the RSN has placed over 100 volunteers in local schools. Requests for languages include Portuguese, Arabic, French, Swahili, Afrikaans, Cantonese, Mandarin, Kurdish, Russian and Czech. Registered volunteers include those from the Philippines, Slovakia, Persia, Brazil and Russia. Student societies are naturally an excellent source of potential volunteers, with many groups formed on the basis of nationality. The University's Brazilian society, for example, has increasingly become a source of volunteers for Portuguese, which (because of the difficulties in Angola) is a much-requested language by schools.

The University has used the RSN as a launch pad for further refugee and asylum-seeker involvement. Close links have been forged with the regional refugee and asylum-seeker support agencies across the public and voluntary sector. While the University offers basic training and CRB checks for all volunteers, partnership with Leeds Asylum Seeker Support Network (LASSN) has enabled volunteers to be trained specifically to support the target group.

This is an exciting and unique project that has caught the hearts and minds of many new volunteers who would not otherwise have been registered with us. It has attracted national press coverage and can truly be said to be a project that utilises one of the University's greatest resources - its large numbers of diverse students and languages.

Hints and Tips

  • Engage the student societies.
  • Forge links with other refugee and asylum-seeker support organisations.
  • Work with other HE and FE providers.
  • Publicise the project in postgraduate centres and staff common rooms.
  • Build a database of volunteer enquiries and schools' language requests.
  • Link up with overseas students through the relevant focal point within the institution.
  • Attend as many functions as possible at the beginning of the academic year, e.g. postgraduate receptions, international student receptions.
  • Request five-minute slots at the start or end of lectures to talk to students directly about the project.
  • Get publicity through campus publications, e.g. staff reviews, student newspapers.
  • Make volunteers aware of the circumstances of the refugee and asylum-seeker children.
  • Provide, where possible, assistance with travel costs.
  • Provide ongoing CRB checking and training for volunteers.
  • Provide a volunteer manual of tips and resources.
  • Provide supervision of volunteers.