Welcome to our new Chair, Kate Scott

Today we are delighted to speak to Kate Scott who has taken over from Irene Austin as Chair of Herts Welcomes Refugees.

How did you first get involved with Herts Welcomes Refugees?  Was there a particular motivating factor?   

I got involved with HWR when I retired in 2018 after working as a solicitor in large City firms for all my career.  Looking back over the previous 30+ years I was reflecting on what I had done that was really worthwhile.  Thinking back, one of the things that came pretty high on the worthwhile list was the time I spent volunteering at an adult literacy project in London when I first graduated. 

I have always been interested in refugee related issues – part of my family came here in the mid 19th century from eastern Europe and my father in law came here as a teenage evacuee from Gibraltar.  I grew up in a multi cultural area of London, went to school with people from lots of different communities and have close friends who came here as immigrants.  Growing up that part of London in the 60s and 70s, I also saw the ugly side of racism.

I was friends with a volunteer who's since moved away and she told me about the charity and said, why don't you come along and try it? HWR seemed a good fit with my background and interests, so I did. And that's how I got involved.

What did you first do?

Because there wasn't really much provision at the local college at the time, John Borton and others started up English classes for the Syrian families who had arrived under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme. Sometimes we were in an office in the council, which was quite nice. But other times we were down in a room in the basement of the theatre in Hemel Old Town, which was all painted black. I think it was a nightclub but that really set the tone of what HWR was about – we get on with providing support in often less than ideal circumstances!

I helped as a classroom assistant, which I enjoyed and I was also a befriender to one of the Syrian families. At that time John was trying to cover Dacorum and Watford and was finding that difficult because it was so busy. He was looking for someone to take over Dacorum and I said that I would. So I became Area Convenor for Dacorum.  Back then, the management group met round Irene’s dining table and we were supporting mostly Syrian families who arrived a few at a time.

What happened next?

Looking back, that seems a very peaceful time in a way, because we just had the Syrian families in Dacorum who were supported by a team from Dacorum Borough Council.  DBC, unlike other councils, used their own staff rather than contracting out support to the Refugee Council.

Then things started to take off in a different direction when first Afghan evacuees arrived in August 2021 and were moved to a hotel just down the road from where I live, shortly followed by the arrival of asylum seekers in Hemel Hempstead. 

The first place was a guest house which was cramped and had no communal space and then a block of flats was opened up, again with no communal space, as asylum accommodation.  These places were opened without consultation with the council, and in the case of the block of flats, we told the council that over 200 asylum seekers had been moved in overnight!  That situation was new at the time but has turned out to be typical of the way the Home Office and their contractors operate although a lot of effort has been put in by the County Council and the district and borough authorities  since to improve engagement.

Previously we'd been dealing with the district and borough authorities, particularly in Dacorum because they didn't use the Refugee Council for the resettlement project. The arrival of the Afghan evacuees and asylum seekers gave us an insight and a way of developing relationships with the County Council and various other organisations who were coming in to support the new arrivals.

The Dacorum team of volunteers grew and diversified its support to meet the needs of the new arrivals, as did teams across the county.  It was a very steep learning curve!  Not only did it bring us into contact with the new arrivals who were from a broad range of countries but it also brought us into different supporting organisations and the County Council, giving us the opportunity to build new relationships and partnerships.  In Dacorum, we have been fortunate in working with two churches who have hosted our drop ins – as there was no communal space in the asylum accommodation so we had to look outside to provide support.  As it turns out, that model has allowed us to support people living in the community and we want to develop it elsewhere.

I became a trustee in 2019 which gave me an insight into the charity as a whole.

How will your role change once you are Chair?

I will be much less hands on in terms of my involvement in Dacorum.  We've got a really, really capable, innovative team in Dacorum, and Jane Collis and Alison Wilkinson are taking over from me as joint Area Convenors.  

My aim is to focus on the charity as a whole and support our Director as she settles into her role. 

How has the charity changed?

We have developed the support we provide and there is far greater diversity in the people we support.  We also support far greater numbers and have a much larger group of volunteers.  We work with a greater range of supporting organisations.  We need more funding to support the work we do. 

But the ethos of the charity remains the same – to welcome, support and advocate for refugees and asylum seekers.  

HWR is now a more complex organisation and the Trustees recognise that we need to build the infrastructure of the charity so that we can carry on supporting people as their needs develop.

So that was the rationale behind applying for the National Lottery funding to build a bigger staff team and provide stability of funding over a three year period.  The team is still very small – a full time Director, part time Volunteer Co-ordinator, part time IT support and we are in the process of recruiting a part time Administrator. Our new Director, Katie Allen East, has made a great start and I am enjoying working with her. 

The King's Award for Voluntary Service is important as a marker of how much the charity has changed and it’s particularly significant that it has been awarded at a time when there is so much anti-migrant feeling.

An important factor in helping us to support the change the charity has already made and continues to make to ensure its sustainability is the work we have been doing with the help of the Lloyd's Operational Development Programme over the last year.  

We've had consultancy support to the Trustees in thinking about our objectives and strategic direction; they're providing a huge amount of support on the IT side and the implementation of Microsoft 365; they provided consultancy support for recruiting for the Director role and help in our move to becoming direct employers.   

Lloyds are very responsive: they've got various charities who are supporting refugees and asylum seekers and they've set up a forum for training and discussion. So we've had some really good training out of that, which I've attended along with Trustees Julian and John. 

We have just started another strand of support, which is to look at our risk assessment process and procedures.  Our Treasurer, Adrian,  Katie, our Director and I are involved in this.

So there's a lot going on that people probably don't see.  The recent volunteer survey showed that people were interested in finding out more about strategy so it is good to let our volunteers know about this.

We are delighted that you will be stepping up to take over from Irene Austin as Chair for the next three years.  What will be your focus going forward?

Continuing the great work of HWR and looking at making us more efficient and effective in the way we do that so that it is easier for us to do that.

I am particularly keen that we focus on what we are best at doing and can do, and look ahead as far as possible to make the support we provide as resilient as possible.  So we will be looking to develop and build relationships with other organisations that can support in ways that we cannot, or that are paid to provide support and using our direct knowledge of refugee and asylum seekers needs to “encourage” them to deliver services appropriately.   

We have talked for a long time about developing more community hubs, with partners, so that the support we provide in hotels is available to the wider refugee and asylum seeker community, and this is a development we are focusing on over the next year.

Advocacy is another area that we will be focusing on, particularly how to involve the people we support directly because they are best placed to tell the truth of the reasons why they are here.

Providing meaningful  opportunities for refugees and asylum seekers to volunteer with HWR and helping them to find volunteering opportunities in the community is another focus.  People really want to contribute and, as we all know, volunteering is great for improving wellbeing.  It is also a good preparation for work.

Our volunteers are our greatest strength – we want to retain them and offer them opportunities to take on different roles and expand their knowledge.  We also want to support our volunteers because we know that the support they provide often brings challenges to their wellbeing.  So progress on our Volunteer Development Programme is a priority.

How can Herts Welcomes Refugees make a difference in these difficult times?

I think we should carry on doing what we're doing – which includes adapting our support to meet emerging needs as we have always done, showing that we care, giving opportunities to people who want to volunteer with us, helping people navigate the asylum process and life in the UK. So creating a channel for the more positive things.

I think our social media is important to get our message across and advocate for the people we support.  It also attracts people who are looking to volunteer and organisations who are interested in working with us.
I’ve already mentioned greater emphasis on advocacy and the Volunteer Development Programme and our plans for more community hubs as practical ways to make a difference.

What would you say to anyone think of becoming involved with refugees?

Just do it!  Tell us what you can offer us and we'll try to find something that is a good fit for you.