Reconnection of Central and Eastern Europeans

This guide is for people working with homeless people from Central and Eastern Europe (A8 and A2 countries). It will help you to consider how you can assist this client group to return to their home countries.

This guide

You can download this guide in a printable format here. For further information see Routes Home - a practical guide for outreach staff and other professionals involved in reconnecting Central and Eastern Europeans who are sleeping rough.

This guide does not cover expulsion of homeless EEA nationals - for information and FAQs on this see the Migrants' Rights Network site.

For information on reconnecting non-EEA nationals see the bottom of this page.

What is reconnection?

Reconnection means supporting people who wish to return to their home countries to do so.

Why reconnect?

Reconnection is an important option to be able to offer for those who are unable to access the labour market or support services in the UK. The Homeless Link Central and Eastern European Rough Sleepers in London: baseline survey in November 2007 found that of those recorded as sleeping rough by outreach teams during a one-week period, 18% were from Central and Eastern Europe. Those with no recourse to public funds have few appropriate alternatives if they are unable to secure work and find themselves destitute. Investing in reconnection schemes can prevent entrenched rough sleeping and the personal issues and difficulties associated with this.

When is it appropriate to reconnect?

It is important that reconnection is a voluntary option, as not everyone will want to return home. There may be a number of reasons for this:

• Pride - for those who come to the UK to make money for their families at home, it can be very difficult to return home with nothing
• Determination to succeed - the person may be confident that he/she will find work soon
• No ties at home - there are some people who, while being nationals of one country, may have lived in others for a long period before coming to the UK and therefore have no ties to their countries of origin
• Legal history - people are sometimes reluctant to return home due to outstanding warrants or debts at home.

Where clients show no signs of being capable of work and are destitute but do not want to go home, building a relationship of trust over time and frequently exploring the benefits of returning home can be useful.

How can I do it?

There are three models of reconnection that you can consider; these are ticket only, assisted return and supported return. When choosing a model you should take in to account the support needs of your clients and the resources and capacity available to you. As part of assessing your clients needs it is useful to discuss the return and any expectations of clients in relation to this.

Whichever model you choose will then involve four stages as shown in the following diagram. Each stage is explained below.

Stage one: arrange support
[This needs only to be done for clients with assisted return and supported return schemes]

It is vital that those with identified support needs are assisted to return to a supportive environment at home. There are two ways you can do this:

1. Refer to an appropriate reconnection scheme within the UK for assistance – see Who does it? for more information. You can then simply liaise with the scheme as it works with the client
2. Contact family and/or services at home to arrange the support that can be offered upon return. See List of services in home countries for contacts. Where possible, arrange for the person to be met upon arrival. This may require translators.

Stage two: organise documentation
Check that your client has a valid passport. Where this is missing, the consulate can issue a temporary replacement and/or travel warrant. See Consulate information for how to arrange this.

Stage three: arrange purchase of ticket
Schemes for payment of tickets are extremely limited in the UK. See Who does it? for more information on these. You may be able to arrange for the client’s family to provide funds for the ticket. Local Authorities can fund return tickets from their Homelessness Prevention Funds. Where you are offering a supported return it is useful to have in place an arrangement/budget for ticket purchase so that the service can respond as soon as a client presents.

It is worth investigating different methods of returning home to minimise costs.

Stage four: return
Where possible it is advisable to accompany those clients with medium support needs to the coach/train station/airport to support them. Clients with high support needs may need accompaniment throughout their journey home. Costs for this in terms of finances and staff time would therefore need to be factored in to any supported return scheme.

Who does it?

Ticket only: A scheme operates in one inner London borough that is administered by the police. Clients must be destitute and verified by the police or outreach teams in this borough.

Assisted return: Consulates have limited resources to support returns but they can assist with issuing travel documents and contacting families and services in home countries.

Supported return: Barka UK currently has reconnection schemes in Brent, City of London, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Tower Hamlets. If you are interested in securing the services of Barka UK in your area please contact them on 020 7275 7768 or email barkauk@barkauk.org

Thames Reach's London Reconnection Team is now accepting referrals for Central and Eastern European Nationals who have expressed a wish to return to their home country. See the press release at Thames Reach's website or download a referral form - available in English and Polish. For enquiries or to make a referral please call 07590 440 302 or email londonreconnectionsteam@thamesreach.org.uk / lrt@thamesreach.org.uk

Top tips for successful reconnection schemes

• Be thorough in establishing the support needs of your clients to ensure you operate an appropriate model of reconnection
• Establish clear eligibility criteria to enable you to support those most in need
• Take copies of identity documents to detect repeat users of the service
• Be clear on the benefits of the scheme to individuals and communities to mitigate negative reports
• It can be helpful to have an arrangement with your local police to check for any outstanding warrants in the UK before returning.

What about Non-EU citizens?

• As of 1st April 2011, Refugee Action will run the Assisted Voluntary Return Programme, which can help people to return to their countries of origin. For information on this programme, click here.
• The International Social Services of the United Kingdom can trace relatives and assist vulnerable people to return home.