On Shropshire Supports Refugees emergency response due to war crisis

The SIP team approached the CEO of a newly formed charity ‘Shropshire Supports Refugees’ in April 2022. To offer their help and support due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Shropshire Supports Refugees is the main charity (in partnership with Shropshire Council) who are leading and managing the ‘Homes for Ukraine’s’ programme’ in Shropshire. This is in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The CEO of the Shropshire Supports Refugees charity advised the SIP team manager they were quickly becoming overwhelmed with volunteer applications from people all over the County, who wanted to support this crisis however the charity didn’t have the resources, processes, training or experience to manage this large (much needed) volume of volunteer interest and recruitment. The SIP team arranged to deal with all the volunteer enquires, recruitment and interviews to support placing volunteers into these new volunteer roles (the majority being welcome and donation hubs). This was to enable the SSR team to concentrate on other areas of much needed emergency response work. In addition to supporting the volunteer management, The SIP team have also given peer support and training to the charity staff and their new volunteers. This has increased confidence and skills which has been needed for these new roles to be successful. Below is the recent communication from Amanda Jones CEO of Shropshire Supports Refugees to the SIP Team Operations Manager explaining the impact the support has given herself and her team:

” Dear Allison

I just wanted to send you a note after the last six crazy months to say thank you so much to you and your SIP Voluntary & Community support team who have supported us in so many ways during this extraordinary time.

As you know we were a very small team when the Ukrainians arrived and we were all in a state of overwhelm, assisting to resettle at least 550 people within a three-month period was enough to finish off any good charity let alone a small one like us.

Having your assistance, delivering training, mentoring me and my team and the work that Duncan has done with the volunteers, I believe has meant the difference between us being able to deliver a service that people are extremely pleased with and one that would’ve just about scratched the surface.

Your team has interviewed so many volunteers for us and then offering your training courses for free, peer to peer support and DBS checking. 

Gold dust ?

All of this has made the biggest difference to us and kept us all sane!

I’ve learnt a lot from you, and I hope to continue our partnership as we move into the next six months of the unknown.

I hope to be able to return the favour sometime

Many thanks again for all your help and your personable approach to support

Amanda Jones

CEO Shropshire Supports Refugees

(And team SSR) “