“Working with clients in co-production has opened new ways of thinking within the Resettlement Team. Our service is there to support clients in their integration and there is no better way to do this than listening to those who have lived experience.”  Regional Manager – Refugee Resettlement 

The task 

Staff from the Resettlement team and members of the Resettlement Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) were asked to prioritise and take forward an idea for service development in 2022. 

What we did  

Staff and clients formed a Task and Finish Group and firstly reviewed an action log of suggested improvements that LEAP members had created. The group voted on which improvement area to work on, and ‘Learning English’ was chosen.  

The group created a knowledge board to define the ‘problem’ and came up with the following: ‘Resettlement clients may be struggling to improve their English’. The group then tried to better understand the problem by considering: 

• What they knew about it 

• What they thought they knew about it 

• What they didn’t know about it 

 

An outcome was agreed to give the group a focus: Resettlement clients can access additional resources to supplement English classes, so they can improve their English. 

The group created user needs statements to consider the requirements of different users when learning English. To test our assumptions, staff and LEAP members paired up to interview other clients in the service. Findings from the interviews were then shared and the group considered what similar conclusions they could draw across the interviews. They then looked at what the Resettlement service already had in place and what external networks and inspirations they could use to reach their outcome. 

  

The outcome  

The main outcome decided by the group was to work with Migrant Help’s Volunteer Coordinator to develop a befriending service where clients will be able to practise conversational and everyday English and get support with using technology.  

Other smaller solutions which were identified were taken on by the Resettlement Service to implement. This included a mechanism for clients to provide regular feedback to English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) providers. 

What we learned  

The process took longer than anticipated, however, the learning has been very useful, and we will repeat the process with other LEAPs going forwards. 

Staff and clients enjoyed working collaboratively on this project, one of the clients commented: 

“Working as a team has been great, everyone was able to share their thoughts and points of view. We have learned from each other and used our knowledge to find solutions. We have come up with good ideas and I look forward to future meetings.”.