In 2008, the Racial Equality Council (Plymouth & District Branch)⁶³ made the award to Mrs. Patricia Baxter, our Senior Project Support Worker.   This award was made to Trish in recognition of her huge contribution to caring for asylum seekers and refugees over many years.

Congratulations Trish!   You deserved this award and all of us at DCRSC are so very proud of you!

I have been a volunteer Auxiliary Caseworker for some time now and I would like to express what an extraordinary privilege that is.   The saying that “it is better to give than to receive” applies here.

What I had to offer was time, some experience of the needs of service users and a little knowledge of the UK Border Agency rules and regulations.

What I receive is:

•   The great satisfaction of feeling useful

•   The thanks of the people I assist

•   The anticipation that on every occasion that I am on duty, I have no idea of what the needs of the
  service user will be for that day... variety being the spice of life!

Inevitably, because of the work involved, we come into contact with the highs and lows of human experience.   One has to say that we often have to witness the helplessness of service users who have failed in their asylum application.   All we can do is guide them through the alternatives open to them and also supply the practical support available from our Food Programme and Clothing Store.   At the other extreme we have the joy of a successful applicant who has achieved a positive result.   In between we receive a host of requests that you just could not anticipate!

Just one example will serve to illustrate what I mean...   About nine months ago, a new service user came into the Centre with a letter from a Sheffield solicitor.   The solicitor was representing a married woman in her asylum application.   This service user knew that her husband was also in Britain but didn’t know where.   The solicitor had obtained a from the Home Office of all the men with this surname who were seeking asylum and she had written to them all.   Our service user was the husband and we were able to arrange the reunion and the Sheffield solicitor took on the case of both husband and wife.   What I don’t know is whether or not they were successful.

I am sure all the other caseworkers will echo my feelings and I am sure they have similar, interesting experiences that they could recount.

This project addressed the problems associated to Alcohol & Drug Consumption, and Alcohol & Drug-Related Crime.

The Partners & Communities Together ( PACT ) Consultation⁶⁴ process that DCRSC was involved with during 2009 identified the need of the community and the gap in information provision concerning alcohol and drug related law.   Service user groups have been actively involved in researching material from the internet and other sources and preparing this material for presentation.

The crime prevention needs have been established.  The communities worked proactively to identify the differences between the law in their home countries and those in the UK.  The project had few stages of preparation:

•   Preliminary Stage:   Research in internet and preparation of the presentations.
•   Meetings with our working partners.
•   And, as the Final Stage:   Community meetings with Eritrean and Iraqi groups.

The information received from this project will help us and our working partners to better address the needs of community.   We identified the gap in information provision and the information that is mostly needed by those particular community groups.

The community groups worked together in all stages of the organisation and delivery the project. Volunteers from community groups gained experience in organisation and delivery of the project. They contributed time, energy and talents that enabled us to target those hard-to-reach groups, and assisted DCRSC to fulfil its mission of helping Asylum Seeker & Refugee (ASR) communities to become caring, capable, and contributing citizens.

The participants have received sets of legal information on civil rights topics to help prevent a negative immigration experience, and the breaching of UK laws. This project has helped to alleviate some of the possible problems encountered by ASR by ensuring people have access to accurate and relevant information.

We would like to express our thanks to all those who have been involved in the preparation and facilitation of the meetings, especially to the Service Users and Staff of DCRSC.

We would also to express our sincere thanks to our working partners from Plymouth Police Diversity Unit who have been actively involved in the preparation and delivery of the meetings with the community groups.

Last year I submitted an article “Through the Eyes of a Volunteer”.   By the time the 2007 Annual Report had been published, I had only undertaken two months as a volunteer with DCRSC.

What has happened since then?   Well, quite a lot to say the least!   I found myself becoming more and more interested in the organisation.   I am one of the dedicated members of the Food Team that prepare the food parcels for our service users.   One pleasant aspect of this I find, is getting to know the service users and being able to greet them by name.   To me, this gives a friendly and caring approach.

During the year, I was invited to become a Co-opted Member on the DCRSC Board of Trustees.   I found this very interesting, to see how things operate on the ‘other side of the fence’, and I now feel I can take a small part in the management of our organisation.

Towards the end of the year, I was appointed the Assistant Food Programme Coordinator to undertake specific tasks within that programme.

Finally, 2009 sees the first decade of DCRSC and, after discussion, I was asked to lead a small team, to take this project forward and to coordinate and plan the various activities and functions throughout the DCRSC 10^th Anniversary Year.   When you read this report, I will be in my second year as a Volunteer and I can look back and say that 2008 was a very rewarding year for me and I look forward with anticipation to 2009.

On most Mondays and Wednesdays, the number of asylum seekers and refugees (ASR) coming into the Centre is so great that people literally have to stand because every seat is taken! This position has lasted for well over a year now and is likely to continue into the future.
In 2008, the Plymouth Refugee Teams:

•   Refugee Action⁶⁵
•   Refugees First⁶⁶
•   START (Students & Refugees Together)⁶⁷
•   and DCRSC⁶⁸,

noticed that dispersals to Plymouth had lessened.   However, in the more recent past the Home Office have recognised that Plymouth – in relation to other dispersal areas – is a relatively inexpensive area to disperse asylum seekers.   As a result, the numbers being dispersed to Plymouth has risen.   It has meant that on occasion, particularly on Mondays, we have had to cover 70 service users seeking our services, including:

•   Advice and advocacy
•   Clothing & household items
•   Food
•   Personal computer and internet usage.

This has created great pressure on our service users.   They are already anxious and frightened.   They often have to wait a considerable time to see a caseworker but in all but the smallest of cases they accept this delay with patience and good humour.   Both staff and volunteers are most grateful for this.

The front-of-house staff:

•   Clothing Store Team members
•   Food Team members
•   Internet Suite supervisors
•   Receptionists
•   Triage worker

Are also under immense pressure.   As the numbers grow, so the need to keep our systems moving becomes more imperative.   The speed with which service users can be seen depends upon the number of caseworkers on duty and the complexity of their cases.   Normally on a Monday and Wednesday we hope to have four or five caseworkers interviewing service users.   We are trying to limit the daily caseload to nine service users per worker but this is not always possible.

Significant progress has been made in training new volunteers to do basic casework tasks.   Included in this number are ASR who are fluent in English and often in more than one other language.   We are at the point where they are working with service users under supervision from our salaried caseworkers.   It should not be long before we have a larger pool of advice workers from which to choose and maintain our service to our service users.

This article has been written by someone far away in Thailand.   Someone who has been an incredible help to Geoff Read by getting the DCRSC Website up and running as well as helping us with lots of other internet and hi-tech problems.   The Helper wishes to remain anonymous but Geoff would like to express his especial thanks.

What it means to be Volunteer?
For me it is to enjoy learning and perfecting WebPages.   In addition, it makes me feel so good knowing that the results are more than a couple of cool-looking WebPages on the internet: the website has been helping DCRSC to provide information to more kind-hearted souls so that they can make more contributions to their community.

How you have found it being a Volunteer?
It has been quite a challenge.   I started out with very limited knowledge of HTML⁶⁹ and CSS⁷⁰.   In order to make good WebPages I had to learn a lot.   The learning process seemed endless as there were always some new development in the world of website technology.   My special thanks to Geoff, who invited me to volunteer for this task. He was the one who saw my potential long before I myself realised it.   Thanks, Geoff!

I have been a volunteer with DCRSC for approximately five years and this is the first and only voluntary job that I’ve ever undertaken.

Over the years I’ve made some really great friends with the other volunteers and also with some of our service users.

I usually work on the Reception Desk but over the past few months I have become involved with the newly-formed Men’s Development Group, helping to organise different social events and activities for our male service users at the Centre.   I find this type of work particularly rewarding.

A typical day for me would include welcoming our service users to the Centre, to “Meet-and-Greet”, and to ascertain from them how we can best be of service to them.   Perhaps they wish to see one of caseworkers.   Perhaps they need a food parcel.   Perhaps they just need some simple advice or maybe they are just calling in for a social visit, or to make a telephone call.   Whatever their need, it is important to them and I believe it is important for us to recognise that importance, and to help them as best we can.   These services are given easily but it is important, I think, that these services are provided in such a way as to allow them some respect and courtesy; thereby affording them a little human dignity.

That doesn’t cost much now does it?

One of the most important things to me is the sense of satisfaction I get at the end of the working day.   The service users thank us for doing the simplest of tasks for them or acknowledging their simplest requests... simple to us perhaps... but extremely important to them!   And when you get to know our service users a little better they’ll come up to chat and joke with us about all their problems, and they’ll even ask about our own welfare and our own family concerns!   This sense of trust and faith only comes with time of course, but it is oh, so important!

But...   best of all, is the really great feeling we receive when you see our service users leaving the Centre with a smile on their faces.   And we know then that we have managed to help someone!

DCRSC is a really great place to carry out voluntary work...   and I am so proud to be a part of the organisation in a small way.

DCRSC will be reaching its 10^th Anniversary in 2009 and I hope it continues to flourish for a further ten years!