Our vision

Access to justice within London communities is increased, enabling grassroots organisations and those who are led by people with lived experience of the immigration system to cultivate their own immigration advice skills.

Our approach

• Grow your own: To take an asset based approach to cultivating and investing in organisations’ existing staff and volunteers

• Grassroots power: Valuing grassroots organisations and those led by people with lived experience of the UK immigration system

• Inclusive & adaptive: Expanding to cover new and emerging populations, stepped increases in need, or under-served client groups

• Increasing access to justice: Developing the availability of high quality in-depth casework and OISC regulated advice

Refugee Action’s Frontline Immigration Advice Project (FIAP) offers support, advice and training to enable organisations to provide quality legal advice to asylum seekers, refugees and migrants.  We know that many organisations face barriers to gaining and raising their levels of Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) registration. That's why we want to invest in organisations and provide wrap-around tailored support to give them the best chance to succeed, and to grow the capacity of the immigration advice sector.

MJGL 2022-2024

In the first round of the project, we supported 6 core partners to expand their advice services, and bring great depth and complexity to their work, each of them doing unique and amazing work. The core program partners were:

- Release

- Sufra NW London

- Harrow Association of Somali Voluntary Organisations (HASVO)

- Latin American Women's Rights Service (LAWRS)

- Polish Migrants Organise for Change (POMOC)

- Southwark Day Centre for Asylum Seekers (SDCAS)

September 2024 to August 2025: what we are offering

We are recruiting 3 partner organisations to receive:

• Funding towards engagement and capacity building costs, including staff time and the maintenance of service provision during the OISC training and exam period.  The amount available per organisation for the year is £14,981.  
• External legal supervision for one member of staff 1 day per week for 3-4 months.
• Fortnightly group, OISC advice clinics
• One-to-one needs assessments, with support to develop a sustainable advice model and action plan
• Help to register with the OISC
• OISC training (Level 1 and Level 2)
• Study support for OISC assessments
• Continuous professional development to progressively increase the quality and complexity of their advice provision
• Tailored training sessions
• Awareness raising sessions to enable anyone who is unregistered to work within their legal boundaries
• A quarterly Community of Practice meeting bringing together newly qualified and experienced advisors, the formal legal sector and other support organisations. This will promote an information, skills and learning exchange, as well as helping to ensure effective utilisation of local capacity.

The funding

Funding available per organisation

• £14,981

September 2024 - August 2025

What we can fund

The funding is available to cover the 6 partner organisations' engagement and capacity building costs, including:

• Resourcing staff time to train and study for OISC assessments (including backfilling staff time to enable them to attend OISC training)
• Costs associated with maintaining service provision during the training and exam period(s)
• Organisational expenses related to OISC accreditation
• Casework costs associated with delivering immigration advice, such as interpretation

What we cannot fund

• Activities that are already funded by the Greater London Authority or another funder (i.e. we are unable to duplicate or ‘double fund’ work that is already funded).

The Criteria

Essential

Organisations must be:

• Working with Londoners in the Greater London area.
• Already registered at OISC Level 1 or higher,  or employing a solicitor, or Law Society IAAS Accredited Adviser to deliver an advice service. Or prepared to apply to register with the OISC at the very beginning of the project.
• Planning to increase the complexity of the immigration advice that they are able to give by raising their OISC level of registration. ‍
• Committed to investing in their own existing staff / volunteers to develop their immigration advice skills - taking a ‘grow your own’ approach.

• Prepared to raise their level of registration and deliver, having:
  • planned their service model;
  • earmarked the specific pieces of OISC regulated advice they are aiming to deliver;
  • confirmed which staff member will be training, registering with the OISC, and participating in 3-4 months of intensive OISC supervision;
  • and created a clear timeline for achieving these things, including OISC registration application submission, and exam dates.

Additional

This section covers the criteria that we will use to prioritise applications.  Every single point does not need to be met by your project, but we will use this list to score your application. 

We are looking for organisations who are/have (or would be as a result of this project / funding):

• Led and / or informed by people with lived experience of the UK immigration system.
• Expanding to support new and emerging populations, or where there has been a stepped increase in need, within an under-served client group.
• Focusing on developing advice services in the OISC ‘Immigration’ category to offer in-depth casework support (e.g. completing forms and gathering the evidence, to progress the cases).
• Planned their future service, incorporating the new or expanded legal advice work.
• Identified staff and volunteers to receive training and OISC supervision.
• Able to prepare a timeline to expanded to new or expanded advice delivery, including rough dates for training, receiving supervision and any required OISC applications.
• Well prepared to engage with the MJGL project in good time.

In prioritising applications, we will consider the balance across different areas of immigration law, OISC Levels, beneficiary groups and geographical locations.

_{We welcome applications from organisations that are led and/or informed by people with lived experience of the UK immigration system.}

What we ask for

Successful partners would also commit to fully participating in the project to maximise the benefits of the support that we are offering, including:

• Attending one or more FIAP online OISC courses. See our events page for examples of the training we offer on a rolling programme.
• Attend an initial one-to-one support and action planning meeting, plus any follow up sessions, as required.
• Actively participate in 3-4 months of intensive OISC supervision.
• Actively participate in the Community of Practice immigration advice group (quarterly meetings)
• Engage in 6-monthly monitoring and evaluation, such as providing budget information on how the funds have been spent, returning questionnaires, sending case studies and quotes etc.

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Deadline for Application Submission: 23rd October 2024

All prospective applicants are welcome to attend a Project Information Session on the 8th October 1-2pm. If you would like to attend, please contact Dan at DanielF@refugee-action.org.uk.

Suggested further reading:

• A Huge Gulf: Demand and Supply for Immigration Legal Advice in London
• Our FIAP microsite