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We're delighted to announce that LASSN has successfully converted to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (Association style), or CIO for short Our Members voted for this change at our AGM in January 24 and (after a few hiccups with the paperwork that required another vote at an EGM in August 24) the Charity Commission have finally approved our application. What does this mean for LASSN?  On a day-to-day level, very little changes. Our Mission and purpose remain exactly the same. We retain our charitable status and we even keep the same Charity Number. Our banking details remain the same, and all the Gift Aid declarations made by our donors and supporters still apply. The main differences are we are no longer registered with Companies House, which means we are now regulated exclusively by the Charity Commission. This means we only have to file one set of accounts, and update one lot of records when things change (eg when Trustees resign). our Constitution is completely up-to-date, and our governance procedures are clearer and less open to interpretation. Consequently, our original 15 page Constitution has now become a 25 page document. If you'd like to read more about the implications of this change, here's a paper we presented to Trustees as they were deciding if they should recommend the change to Members. Get involved  LASSN needs Trustees from a wide range of backgrounds, to make sure we have the right balance of decision makers. We particularly want to recruit Trustees from ethnically diverse communities. Although most of the folks we work alongside are from racialised communities, most of our Trustees are not. We want more Trustees to be drawn from the diverse communities we serve, or to have direct experience of migration to the UK. Younger Trustees. The average age of Trustees is currently 57, and we'd love to get some younger folks involved in how we run things. If you'd like to find out more about what being a Trustee at LASSN involves, and the support and training we can provide, please look at our Trustee Information pack, or contact our Director, Jon Beech [email protected] for an informal chat.

Although the Pandemic restrictions mean we can't meet up in person, we'd still love to meet with you, to share even more about what we've been up to over the last year. As usual, we hope it will be fun, entertaining, informative, and a chance for us to share some of the challenges and triumphs of the last 12 months. As well as meeting other our supporters, volunteers and well-wishers from across the city, we hope you will find out more about the last year at LASSN, and the progress we have made towards securing our aims, hear about our plans and priorities for 2020/2021 ask questions vote for Trustees to join our Board cast your eyes over our finances and hear about how we've secured and spent money appoint our Accountants for the coming year Sadly due to the logistics of delivering food to everyone at home, it will be self- catering this year.  How to join us Please click on the Meeting link:http://bit.ly/lassnagm20 If you are prompted, the Meeting ID is 816 6912 7820 and the Meeting code is: 12345 If you have not used Zoom before, or a bit uncertain about how things will work, we will be having a practice run at 18:00 that evening, to make sure your camera and microphones are working ok. We'd love to see you, so if you can, please come and join us.

We’re using Refugee Week as a way to explain how the work of LASSN has changed during Lockdown. Each day we’re offering examples of how we’ve adapted what we do, to make sure asylum seekers and refugees and other migrants at risk of harm remain supported, empowered, and integrated. What's changed? Like all the other LASSN projects that depend on face to face contact and support, Lockdown has been very disruptive. New referrals have been put on hold and we've suspended volunteer recruitment until we can do this safely. However, we've also been able to ensure that people who are still waiting to be matched with a CO befriender have not been left on their own. We've trained and deployed existing volunteers to become temporary ‘CO Telephone Befrienders’ to make sure everyone on CO Befriending waiting list has some form of contact during lockdown. As cafes and trips out are no longer possible, Volunteer Befrienders are now reliant on phone contact, Whatsapp, or Zoom to keep in touch. Everyone has been offered extra phone credit to help to make this happen and some matches are speaking more regularly now they are not meeting face-to-face! We've developed a weekly peer-support session for all LASSN volunteers called ‘Monday Meet Up’ to help share ideas and sharpen our online support skills. The online learning resources developed by English at Home have been particularly useful for Befrienders looking for virtual activities to do with their Befriendee A few participants decided to postpone Befriending for the time being – because they are too busy with childcare responsibilities, or – due to the emotional strain of Covid-19 - they just don’t feel able to focus on Befriending right now Our ‘Tea and Talk’ sessions have moved online, thanks to the energy and enthusiasm of our brilliant volunteers. Taking a large-ish social group running in a massive cafe in town on line is no small feat - and takes a lot of energy to rapidly overcome the barriers of confidence, technical knowledge, and equipment to get online, get into the meeting, feel welcomed and supported and for it also to be fun! We've done this by focusing on what's important to the folks who attend tea and talk - using a ‘Tea & Talk’ Whatsapp group to make communication easier and to choose topics for conversation. We've also made us of a lot of visual aids to facilitate conversations, i.e. ‘Show and Tell’: sharing an object that is special to you with the group, and explaining why it's special; sharing decorations made during Ramadan, photos and recipes. “Thank you…You don’t know how much I enjoy these lovely two hour talks. Time really flies.” I’m Laura . I’m Egyptian. I have been in the UK since 2014. I came first to North Wales. I stayed 2.5 years there . I felt so lonely . I didn’t know anybody there. Nobody asked about me . I felt very depressed. After this my husband came to Leeds and started a [...]

We’re using Refugee Week as a way to explain how the work of LASSN has changed during Lockdown. Each day we’re offering examples of how we’ve adapted what we do, to make sure asylum seekers and refugees and other migrants at risk of harm remain supported, empowered, and integrated. What's changed? Lockdown came at a strange time for Befriending - we'd only just nicely completed and publicised our Evaluation of Befriending and made our plans for the next year, when all this was thrown up in the air. As social distancing was introduced (and Lockdown soon afterwards), Befrienders found that they could not longer meet with the person they were matched with, and faced the new challenge of how supporting someone they could no longer meet. After months and months of building confidence to to get out of the house, to share a cuppa in a cafe, and to maybe to meet new people - asylum seekers and refugees were suddenly being told to stay inside, and to socially distance from others. Our fledgling social groups were hit particularly hard. In the months running up to lockdown we had placed particular emphasis on developing and expanding our Meet and Connect project. The aim of Meet and Connect is to assist isolated asylum seekers and refugees to meet up with other people in cafe spaces across Leeds in order to buld their confidence, practice English and to find out more about (and eventially to connect with) their local neighbourhoods. Lockdown meant we could no longer meet up like we used to, and the key message from the project set up to combat isolation and loneliness was "Stay Home, Save Lives and Protect the NHS." So, like English at Home, Befriending has stopped taking new referrals for the time being, and to concentrate on maintaining contact with the people we already know, to ensure they have sufficient food and resources to keep body and soul together accurate and accessible information on the Pandemic, and the key Public Health messages sufficient phone credit, and digital devices to keep in contact with their volunteers, and other sources of support volunteers who are sufficiently trained and supported to make the leap from face to face to online and phone support. Our Digital Inclusion scheme (supplying phone credit, wifi dongles and smartphones) is a direct response to the loneliness and isolation experienced by people on low incomes during Lockdown. And with the help and support of Leeds City Council's 100% Digital team, the West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commisisoner and friends at Solidaritech we have managed to extend support far beyond LASSN's befriending and Meet and Connect participants. Nicolla, our volunteer has been receiving orders, packing up bundles of phones and SIMS and other tech before couriering them out to folk who need them.  We've set up regular Zoom calls (Monday Meetups) to help volunteers to grapple with the new technology and to build their confidence in maintaining meaningful relationships at a distance. This has not [...]

We’re using Refugee Week as a way to explain how the work of LASSN has changed during Lockdown. Each day we’re offering examples of how we’ve adapted what we do, to make sure asylum seekers and refugees and other migrants at risk of harm remain supported, empowered, and integrated. What's changed? Since Lockdown, we've put Emergency/night-to-night Hosting on hold. Hosting has always been about what is do-able, and we will never put pressure on Hosts to host. Even so, we managed to get everyone we knew into longer-term placements before closing to new referrals. One of our Hosting Coordinators - who arrange matches on day to day basis - captured some of her thoughts during the last days before lockdown It’s become a cliche to say we are living in extraordinary times, but, we certainly are. In amongst the extraordinary anxiety and some extraordinary silliness, the extraordinariness of Grace hosting has come shining through. I had the pleasure of being Coordinator on a day when some of the restrictions on social contact and movement were beginning to kick in. It wasn’t easy, asking if volunteers were able to host that night. But every volunteer I contacted responded quickly and with care. Some were apologetic (absolutely no need to apologise) but because of their particular vulnerability, had to pull back from hosting. Others offered to host and, where they could, offered additional nights so that guests were shielded from having to move around. Everyone wanted to do what they could to help. This meant we started Lockdown with 10 people staying with Hosting households, and 4 people staying at the newly opened Grace House. We supplied guests with accessible information about COVID-19 and helped them to learn the new rules about social distancing, hand-washing, and their responsibilities to other members of their household. This was a big change. Our hosting guidance encouraged Guests to spend most of their days outside the house and to come back in the evening. Now, Hosts were asking Guests to stay at home all the time and to drastically reduce contact with the outside world. 3 months down the line, 4 of these arrangements are no longer in place - all 4 people have accommodation elsewhere (either with friends, relatives, or accommodated by the Council under the Everybody In arrangements) Lockdown meant that most hostels and night shelters were closed overnight, and the Council placed a total of 220 people into hotels, apartments, and other temporary accommodation. This included around 20 asylum seekers with No Recourse to Public Funds in a Hostel in Holbeck, 11 of whom had previously stayed in the WYDAN Nightshelter. Hosting During Lockdown A host writes My guest and I are both deemed vulnerable and are self isolating together. We sit in the garden in the mornings drinking posh coffee ie.percolated. We enjoyed the sun yesterday. I take out my papers and crosswords and he gets lots of calls from his friends who are lovely and all pass on good wishes to me. [...]