Pete White (Project Manager at CLEAR)
As we come to the end of 2024, I’ve been reflecting on a year of change, challenges and achievements here at CLEAR. I discovered that there were quite a lot of each, but here are some of the highlights…
A year of changes….with our National Lottery funding ending in September, we needed to focus on reducing our costs alongside ongoing fundraising and meeting the needs of our clients. At the end of July we moved from our building in James Street to the Voluntary Action Centre and the Central Library… and our advice team was open throughout, not missing a day!
The move gave us the opportunity to redefine our advice delivery model. Without our own building, we now work out of spaces in the community, with clients contacting us via WhatsApp, online or in person at one of three drop ins around the city. We then triage and either deal with urgent or quick-fix cases at the time, signpost to other provision, or book an appointment with a CLEAR advisor for complex or non-urgent cases.
A year of challenges… it’s been a tough environment to be working in with many of our clients affected by the implementation of the Illegal Migration Act which has left them ‘in limbo’, and then the anti-immigration riots across the country in August. We saw increasing numbers of clients with no immigration status, who have needed to access support to try and regularise their immigration status and deal with destitution. Others have faced homelessness due to the lack of affordable accommodation in the city, and all have been impacted by the cost-of-living crisis.
I’ve been encouraged by how agile and responsive the team have been in responding to these needs (in the midst of changes) and finding creative ways to increase capacity. We have continued to invest in team training and to prioritise wellbeing – I’m a big believer that ‘you can’t pour from an empty jug‘, so if we are to continue to support those who need our help, then we need to keep looking after ourselves!
A year of achievements….Our ESOL courses remained in high demand. In the 2023/24 academic year, we enrolled over 180 learners across 11 different courses, with students sitting exams in Speaking and Listening and Reading and Writing, with an overall pass rate of 86% and 82% respectively. We also provided an IT drop in, a conversational group, a Community Music project with the Welsh National Opera and the University of Southampton, a Creative Writing project with Artful Scribe and MAST, and football sessions with Saints Foundation. 14 learners passed City & Guilds Customer Service Level 2 and the South East Tourism ‘Welcome Host’ Gold course, and we delivered “Sharing Food, Sharing Skills” course which included a Level 2 Food Safety qualification. We piloted a new participatory course – “ESOL for Volunteering and Community Action” – to address language and cultural understanding that can be a barrier to getting involved and a key stepping stone to employment and integration.
Our Advice team have supported over 900 people this year. We have provided advice around benefits, housing and immigration, and supported people to obtain legal advice, assisted them to understand the asylum process and help them with the transition from seeking asylum to gaining refugee status. Our Employment Service supported over 60 clients, focusing on asylum seekers with right to work and those in the UK for a long time with limited English.
I was really pleased that we were able to run a pilot project offering trauma counselling to five clients, with very positive outcomes around self-confidence, support networks, understanding boundaries, personal choices and understanding feelings.
We couldn’t run without the dedication and commitment of over 40 volunteers supporting us across the project, and I’m so grateful for the skills and experience they bring. We are working hard to reduce barriers to involvement and create opportunities for those with lived experience, and currently have 8 volunteers from countries including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Kosovo, Hong Kong, and Zimbabwe. We also rely on excellent partnerships across the city and beyond, which enable us to work together and to signpost clients to additional help.
We have seen the circulation of our e-newsletter, website hits and social media engagement grow, and been encouraged by an increase in financial donations to our work. We have a lot to be grateful for!
Looking ahead to 2025…sadly the need for our project isn’t going away any time soon, and so we remain committed to helping some of the most vulnerable members of our community. Ensuring we have the funding required remains a priority, with an emphasis on sustainability through earned income, alongside contracts, grants, corporate support and individual donations. We also want to get better at recording our impact and increasing the involvement of people with lived experience throughout the project.
If you’ve read this far, then thank you – it means a lot!