Access Migrant Support update
There is a longstanding migrant community in West Norfolk and North Cambridgeshire, many from Central and Eastern Europe. A significant number work in agriculture and food processing, where language can be less of a barrier. Working in these particular sectors can have a negative impact on families, who though having lived in the area for many years, struggle to integrate with the local communities and access services such as health care, housing, welfare benefits and schools for their children.
ACCESS has provided support for these migrant communities for many years. Our team of project workers, who are members of the migrant community themselves, are able to speak a wide range of Central and Eastern European languages. This enables them to work with migrants to tackle a range of issues and alleviate the stress of language poverty. ACCESS works in partnership with many other agencies, including the NHS, to support our clients. For example, we are partnering with maternity services to help ensure that mothers-to-be with language difficulties are properly cared for and know where to get help.
The needs of our migrant community are changing. Some of those who have lived here for many years are ageing and leaving employment at a time when they are experiencing a deterioration in personal health. As a result they find themselves more isolated and unable to easily access health care. New migrant arrivals, post Brexit, may be on short term visas, housed in temporary accommodation with limited access to health services and support. Patterns of service delivery in the wider community are changing too, with a greater use of online and digital delivery routes, often replacing traditional face to face advice. Older people and those in temporary accommodation can often find it difficult to access the support they need when delivered via such non-traditional routes, perhaps because of unfamiliarity with the technology, poor internet access or the difficulty of relying on pay as you go rather than longer term contracts.
The need for ACCESS’s services is increasing, and in order to ensure that we can continue to reach our communities we will need to adapt and develop both the services we provide and the way in which we deliver them. Pro-active engagement with our communities has always been central to ACCESS’s way of working, and this will be a key element of our planning and delivery of our future services and support.
Working with Neon Tribe, a specialist facilitation company with extensive experience of user engagement in the voluntary sector, we are planning a two stage process designed to draw on the knowledge and expertise of our staff (who are members of the migrant community themselves) and on migrants drawn from Wisbech and North Cambs, who are representative of migrant communities living in the area. We will explore with participants their experiences of services and support, what works and what does not work so well, where they see gaps in provision and how they think these gaps could best be closed. The potential of digital technologies as a route to delivering support will be a part of this consultation.
The feedback from this consultation will provide us with valuable information on how we can develop a pro-active and user friendly online platform, to complement our existing face to face advice delivery. A new online advice platform, in the languages of those hardest to reach migrant communities, could provide a valuable route towards improved health care, enhancing the much needed work we and our partners deliver.