The area of policy which the project addressed is the social integration of Syrian refugees in UK society. Strong social integration reduces the social distance between groups, enables everyone to enjoy equal opportunities and promotes consistent values and practices.
Community Sponsorship Groups have welcomed many Syrian refugees since 2016 and have helped them to settle into society. They support refugees’ English language needs, find accommodation and build refugees’ skills to adapt to life in the UK. Nonetheless, many challenges to Syrian refugees’ social integration remain. A lack of access to English language support makes integration challenging. Living in a different country means adapting to cultural differences. Syrian refugees may lack high quality social connections. Given their gender, women refugees often experience resettlement differently to male refugees.
Since March 2022, a team of researchers at Westminster (Lilian Miles, Maria Granados, Christina Flora) and Middlesex Universities (Tim Freeman) have been researching the experience of community sponsorship groups in London in supporting Syrian refugees. Our research question was: In what ways can resettlement planning for Syrian refugees in London be improved?
Our research with community sponsorship groups resulted in a set of practices to improve resettlement planning for Syrian refugees in London. Some of the issues we explored were (i) providing an enabling framework to reduce dependency, (ii) avoiding cultural assumptions, (iii) working with both men and women in the household, (iv) coordinating community sponsorship volunteers within subgroups, and (v) engaging expertise external to community sponsorship groups to mediate between SC and families.
For more information about this project please contact:
- Professor Lilian Miles ([email protected])
- Professor Tim Freeman ([email protected])
- Dr Maria Granados ([email protected])
We thank our PhD Research Assistant Christina Flora for her valuable support. ([email protected])
UN Sustainable Development Goals alignment
Goal 5: Gender Equality
Goal 10: Reduced Inequality
Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities
Read more projects by Dr Lilian Miles
Study name: Asylum seeker decision making
Project length: March 2022–October 2022
Project overview
A research project that seeks to understand the factors influencing asylum seeker behaviour and decision-making in their journeys to the UK. The project includes an evidence review, key stakeholder interviews, and the selection and application of a model of behavioural insight to provide concrete asylum policy and practice recommendations.
Research team
Study name: Piloting health interventions to advance the sexual and reproductive health of women migrant workers in Malaysia
Project length: April 2020–October 2021
Project overview
A research project which explored the effectiveness of three interventions (education, mobile health clinic and referral services) to address factory women migrant workers’ reproductive health needs in Malaysia.
Research team
- Dr Lilian Miles (UK PI)
- Dr Noraida Endut (Malaysian PI)
Study name: The 'Inclusion' challenge: UK social integration of low-skilled and low-waged migrant workers during the pandemic
Project length: August 2020–July 2021
Project overview
A research project which explored how policy making in the UK can be made more inclusive to address the welfare needs of low-waged migrant workers in the UK during the pandemic.
Research team
Study name: SDG#5 Access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and violence against women migrant workers services (VAWMV) in Malaysia
Project length: June 2019–August 2019
Project overview
A research project which explored how women migrant workers’ reproductive health needs in Malaysia can be addressed and how gender-based violence against them can be prevented. We drew on the insights and views of government, business, academics, local and international NGOs and unions in writing a Strategy Paper for the funder, which was circulated to the government to inform the drafting of the country’s twelfth national development plan (2021-2025).