Reconnections - Leeds

Who we are

The West Yorkshire Reconnections Team is a CRI service that works with people from former A8 and A2 countries who are rough sleeping or at risk of rough sleeping and who wish to return to their family and original community.

These individuals usually have no recourse to public funds and consequently cannot access hostels or claim benefits. They may have been exploited and/or have additional support needs that have made it difficult to find employment, such as substance misuse or mental illness.

What we do

The Reconnections Team works on an outreach basis. Service users either contact us directly or can be referred by local authorities/support agencies, including the police, probation service, health services, homelessness day centres and faith groups. Agencies can also contact the team to report sites where central and eastern Europeans are known to sleep rough. We will then approach rough sleepers to offer our services.

Once alerted to a new service user, Reconnections workers then arrange to meet them in the area where they are based to carry out a needs assessment and advise what assistance can be offered. The team includes bilingual workers able to interpret in Polish, Slovakian and Hungarian. On some occasions however, we may need to use telephone translation services via the referring agency. Assistance can include:

• Temporary travel documents*
• Travel arrangements from UK to residence in home country
• Escort to embassy appointments and airport/coach stations where necessary
• Interim accommodation while transport and documents are being arranged, where possible

Accommodation is arranged through the local authority, where joint-working protocols have been established. It is only arranged for individuals returning to their country of origin and is withdrawn if they decide during the process to remain in the UK. Depending on their circumstances, some individuals may require further help from the NHS or to connect with similar services in their home countries and, in cases of severe mental or physical illness, to assist them to travel with additional funding and/or a staff escort.

The service is accessible to all groups of vulnerable clients, irrespective of gender, age, sexuality, disability, HIV status, appearance, ethnic origin, cultural and religious beliefs.

*Please note we do not organise temporary passports/identity cards for the purpose of gaining employment in the UK.

 

Further information

A8 countries = Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Estonia

A2 countries = Romania, Bulgaria