Support thread for those hosting refugees and advice for those thinking about it

[Honeysuckle9]

As per the previous thread this is a thread so we can offer support to each other and also outline the things we should be thinking about before making this leap

Advice I would give anyone thinking about it

• don’t expect a friend or for this to enrich your life in some way. You are doing a good deed, but you may have no relationship with this person in the future, or you could become great friends. Have no expectations here.


• it’s not up to you why they came here or what they plan to do. Provided it doesn’t interfere with you or your home, keep out of it. It’s their lives to live


• however if they seem ‘lost’ offer guidance and help but take no offence if they do differently


• be prepared to give a lot of your time in the first 2-3 weeks with admin etc and be prepared for your guests to take a back seat here - they’re likely in shock


• be prepared to be flexible around food shopping and meals. They don’t have to fold into your ways but if your preference is day for the kitchen to be ‘closed’ by a certain time then say it


• Think of the type of person you can host - young / old/ single/ children. A family is a totally different dynamic to a single person.


• Be upfront about house rules and helping around the house but this person isn’t your cleaner, remember that.

We have been lucky, we all rub along but I know others are not having the same experience and in some cases this could have been avoided by planning and communication . In other cases it’s simply a bad match.

My reasons for doing it are that I think it’s real luxury for us to be able to offer help and I was very influenced by Jewish friends parents and grandparent stories around fleeing war and relying on the kindness of strangers.

Thanks Honeysuckle.
I had started one in chat at the same time but we will go with yours if that’s ok because of your very helpful opening post. I have put a link to this one on the other.

Apologies @TheCountessofFitzdotterel I was looking but in the wrong place !!

Next time we’ll start it before the old one gets full!

Hello checking in here. My guest arrived this week after I made a cross Europe trip to get in via Border Control in France. The only good thing about the excessively long wait since the application was submitted was that I had a very lengthy "To do" admin list which my guest was happy to crack on with and the various appointments are now coming through.

I am fortunate in that my youngest is in y1 uni and although my guest is 18 over here they would still be a y13 pupil so it has been easier to slip into a "foster mum" type role.

So far so good here.

@SeasonFinale That sounds like it’s all working well. I do think that when you are still in a semi ‘parenting’ stage of your life, it makes this whole thing a lot easier

Just to tap into the convo from the previous thread a bit. I would say that it is absolutely fine for us to vent about any difficulties or things we weren't mentally prepared for. Everyone who works or volunteers with vulnerable people will have difficult days and vent with their colleagues about stuff they would like to go differently. And even therapists have to have someone assigned to them whom they can vent to about their caseload and get feedback. If people start to get offended and think we are bad mounting the 65 million Ukrainians based on a handful of difficult cases, perhaps they could remember that we are human too and we aren't doing it as a job or for a fluffy time, we are just trying to do the right thing, and we are venting so re can recharge our cups and get back to helping our guests.

Also does anyone know if it is possible to tag people who aren't in the thread so that they can be directed here from the previous one.

@Shelovespawpatrol I don’t know, I did see if I could but couldn’t find a way.

The whole process leading up to this has been draining, as mentioned in the previous thread. From finding a guest and conversing through translator and doing the visa for each family member and having to ask for every bit of information the visa asks for, working out the name of their address from the Ukrainian alphabet and then converting all the files into PDF form before they could be uploaded and trying to communicate and prepare guests alongside all of this whilst living your own life at the same time. And then finding out it takes a few days to get their money and months to get yours, so the realisation that there is nothing you can buy them for when they arrive (unless you can afford it) and you can do nothing to make things easier beforehand, like get their sim card or apply for their benefits, so it's all a mad rush leading up to them arriving, posting on Facebook group after Facebook group for donations of bedding toys clothes formula baby food etc and arranging times for things being dropped off or picked up. I even had to find a second hand bed a few days before they arrived. My guests visas arrived in three days so I had mentally prepared to have a few weeks at least to prepare, as per stories I had heard and it was a shock. It's not like you can just tell someone to wait in Ukraine and so when they get here you would just appreciate a tiny bit if they could just have some patience and try to sort their admin out their selves or wait for you to have restored your energy to do so for them. They have this notion that you are indisposable.

Ahh, just seen we're running with this thread instead so will repost my post here

Been a good day here today - yesterday I helped my guest with her CV. Today she printed it out, took it round a few local shops and came back with a job offer from the local Co-op, to start next week! I think that's pretty impressive when you've had to move to a new country with only a suitcase, hardly speaking the language and so much to sort out. Really pleased for her. 🙂The manager was Hungarian apparently and supportive of new arrivals from Ukraine. She's planning to do this coop job part time on top of her WFH job from Ukraine, though she'll earn more from it - despite it being minimum wage and only 20 hours a week - the exchange rate for Ukrainian money isn't good at all currently.

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Thank you for this additional thread.

@Fireyflies Good for her, that’s so proactive. My guest is showing no interest in work yet as she can’t get it in her chose field (hardly any English) I worry about her staying longer than an initial few months if she won’t work

Not being able to find work in her normal (well paid professional) field is something I know my guest has been sad about. But it would request significantly better English than she has, and she realises that. I hope her English is good enough for the co-op job - hopefully they'll put her on tills to start with as I can't see her coping too well with costumers accosting her to ask where some obscure product is. Must be tough though to go from professional middle class status and salary to starting at the bottom in a low skilled minimum wage job. If she stays in the UK long term the plan would be to improve her English and then potentially move back to her professional field.

@Honeysuckle9 - I'd push yours onto the job centre if you can. That way she'll have a bit of money even if she doesn't work, and they can hassle her to apply for realistic jobs rather than you causing stress between you by trying to do it. No harm in giving her a week or two though to find her feet (and start to work here way though the £200) before she does that though.

@Fireyflies She is receiving a government welfare payment (Ireland) so although she hasn’t much cash she isn’t penniless.

I feel I’ve encouraged as much as I can and now need to just accept her choice. It will likely mean a shorter stay here for her but she needs to come to that conclusion herself

@Fireyflies I agree that it must be very difficult to take a job so far away from your previous role. It’s ok at 18-22 but once you start working in your chosen profession it would be very hard to step back

I wonder what happens at the Universal Credit interview? I am slightly concerned they’ll tell my guest to go and work in the bacon factory and he’ll get upset.
He’s still teaching for his university in Kyiv which isn’t getting him quite enough to put him over the UC threshold (presumably the exchange rate issue mentioned below is a factor) and isn’t going to want to leave his students in the lurch. Meanwhile dh and others in his department (where our guest is officially an unpaid visiting research associate) are helping him apply for funded research grants and putting out feelers for appropriate work in the field- he won’t need much to push him over the threshold but obviously at this level every little helps. Will they be ok with this as an initial approach or will they be wanting to push him immediately into whatever low paid work he can get?

My guest has now decided she won’t apply for Universal Credit, so I have a situation where she doesn’t want to get a job, and doesn’t want to apply for UC. She keeps saying she will do it when she moves in with her boyfriend, but as explained on the previous thread, it’s all very vague.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel I think the job centre will allow him to search for jobs in his chosen field for a period, possibly six months or a year or something before they say he has to look for just anything. If they don't, raise it to a manager. As long as he shows he is spending a particular amount of hours each week writing letters for those jobs and searching for them or preparing for them.

I think they've technically changed that policy recently @Shelovespawpatrol so can now require job hunters to look for any job from day 1. Though not sure that someone working remotely in a full time job would be eligible to be a jobhunter - hopefully they'll just count him as a low waged working person and not require any job hunting activity. If not, I'd be surprised if they told him to go work in a factory in day 1 if he explains about the efforts he's making to apply for work in his existing field.

Hi all, I'm new here.

Our guests (baby, teen, mother) have been with us about 3 weeks, and seem to be doing pretty well. I realise now that we are having an easy ride with things like UC, as mum won't be expected to work for quite a while, due to the baby being so small.
The difficulties we are facing right now are really about school/university for the older one. He doesn't want to do A-Levels, but his options with a Ukrainian school cert are pretty limited. Anyone know anything about this?

Will they be ok with this as an initial approach or will they be wanting to push him immediately into whatever low paid work he can get?
I was talking to someone in a somewhat similar situation, ie someone who needs to take a professional exam to get a permission to practice in the UK. She needs some local "shadowing" / hands-on practice experience before that, it seems to be available on unpaid basis only (which is totally fair), but the jobcentre does seem to require her to apply for all jobs (and she's effectively considered "unskilled") from day 1. There's a clause that if she's in education or training she doesn't need to do that, but just volunteering somewhere doesn't count. I think she has resigned just to borrow money for now to cover approx 6 months needed.

He doesn't want to do A-Levels, but his options with a Ukrainian school cert are pretty limited. Anyone know anything about this?

His options are (outside of A Levels).

1. A foundation programme at the university of his choice. Not all offer this, but worth asking around. Ukrainians are eligible for the home fee status in most.

1. Enrol in Ukraine (most universities are still operating remotely). After his first year he would be considered as having an equivalent of A-levels in his chosen specialism by many universities. And, obviously, this is the best option if they plan to return. Even if not, there is zero guarantee that his visa will be extended beyond three years, and it doesn't grant any permanent residence rights. Would be a bummer to spend £££ on a degree programme / get into student debt just to get deported in your third/ fourth year, or lose the right to study.

1. Sit A-Levels or I would suggest even IB as a private candidate (ie without wasting two years in a college). Again, depends on his preferred area of study. Anything STEM related, he probably won't even need much prep if his English is decent, the Ukrainian school curriculum is quite hardcore compared to the British one in these subjects. Arts and humanities are much trickier.

Found you! Just marking place for now but will post later when more time.