We understand that life after detention can be very difficult. The Ex-Detainee project aims at supporting released Ex-Detainees to reintegrate into society and to participate in their local community despite the hardships of limited support.
The Ex-Detainee Project is a nationwide project and can provide help to anyone who has been released from any of the immigration detention centre across the country. You do not have to have been a detainee in Dover to receive support from the project.
By necessity we have to focus our financial resources on those Ex-Detainees that are threatened with or are experiencing destitution. However, we also provide moral, emotional and psychological support, and utilise our many contacts across the country to help Ex-Detainees with whatever difficulties they may be facing.
If you want to know more about our project, please contact us and ask for the Ex-Detainee Project Manager.
Here are some of the services we offer
• Providing you with general advice after you have been released
Once you have been released, many things can be confusing. You might not know the area where you live or you might feel isolated and lonely. We can give you advice on a variety of issues. We can help you find a doctor or dentist in your area, keep in touch with your solicitor, identify other help and support organisations for you and can put you in touch with organisations looking for volunteers (you will not need permission to work to volunteer with them). While we can try and help you find a solicitor to help you with your legal queries, DDVG itself is unable to provide legal advice.
• Emergency financial support
Many Ex-Detainees are not eligible for any form of government support and generally do not have permission to work. This leaves people in dire financial straits, often going hungry. For people without any form of support, we are able to provide a small amount of money on a monthly basis to help them with food costs and other basic necessities. We also try to identify any local support available and determine eligibility for other forms of support.
• Keeping in contact
We can help Ex-Detainees to stay in contact with family, solicitors and help organisations by providing phonecards on an ‘as needed’ basis.
• Travel for essential trips
After detention, the lack of financial support and cash can make everyday life very hard. We can assist you with important, essential journeys, such as to access accommodation, to attend a clothing store, medical appointments and in limited circumstances, to visit your legal representatives. We also have limited funding to pay for extended journeys such as to make a fresh claim or to attend court hearings in exceptional cases. Please discuss these individual cases with the Ex-Detainee Project Manager.
• Homelessness and destitution
With your legal circumstances or your private life changing, you might find yourself destitute and without any support. DDVG itself does not own any property or administrate any homeless shelter, but we have forged links with night shelters and homelessness service providers and will try to assist you to find a place to stay or to access mainstream homelessness services. This might mean that you have to leave the area where you usually stay, because often it is difficult to find housing for you there. For those we can not find somewhere to stay we will keep in close contact with you and provide you with financial support to ensure that you are able to eat and put you in touch with day-centres and local support organisations.
• Clothing
We recognise that the support from the Home Office for released detainees is very limited. Often clothing is not seen as an essential need and the financial support is either non-existent or too little for you to buy new or even second hand clothing. We can refer you to local services where you can get secondhand or donated clothes for free, through our links with organisations nationwide.
• Annual Conference
Once a year we organise a major conference to help Ex-Detainees from across the country to meet and discuss some of the common problems they all face. The conferences focus on issues being faced by Ex-Detainees, with a view to giving Ex-Detainees a space to have their voices and concerns addressed. The conferences also aim to provide something of use for the Ex-Detainee to take away with them – a contact, some information, some practical advice. All Ex-Detainees are invited to the conference and we will assist with travel expenses in order that Ex-Detainees are able to attend.
• Awareness raising
Awareness raising is an important element of the Ex-Detainee Project in Dover – many people simply do not understand the difficulties faced by Ex-Detainees in the UK. We are working together with other organisations to demonstrate that being an Ex-Detainee in the UK is a very difficult challenge and to have this message recognised by policy makers. We contribute to the debate on a national level through our work with organisations such as Detention Forum, and we also provide talks and training on the problems faced by Ex-Detainees to other organisations in the sector.
Examples of help the Ex-Detainee Project has provided
1. Maintaining contact with children
The Ex-Detainee Project has assisted several Ex-Detainees to remain in contact with their children. In one particular case, we assisted with travel expenses for an Ex-Detainee to travel to have contact with his child and to attend CAFCASS appointments. We also provided a letter to the court outlining the difficulties the Ex-Detainee had faced in maintaining contact with his child, given the very limited support he was entitled to. The court granted a contact order giving the Ex-Detainee regular contact with his child. As a result of this, the Ex-Detainee gained the right to remain in the UK to exercise his right of access to his child.
2. Determining eligibility for support
The Ex-Detainee Project has identified several cases where Ex-Detainees have been entitled to Asylum Support but were unaware of it. The eligibility criteria for accessing Asylum Support is complex and often confusing. We have assisted people in specific situations to make applications for support and helped them with gathering the evidence to support their applications. In one case, an Ex-Detainee was granted Section 4 support on the day they would have become street homeless. As a result the Ex-Detainee, who was very vulnerable, did not have to sleep on the streets.
3. Referrals for help and counseling
We know that many Ex-Detainees have psychological difficulties, arising from their experiences in their home country and compounded by their time spent in detention. Detention is widely recognised to impact adversely on the mental health of the person detained. Often people just need to talk about their experiences, many times they need long-term support. We have helped a number of Ex-Detainees to access the support they need, for example by referring them to Freedom from Torture (The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture) and the Helen Bamber Foundation, amongst others.
4. Providing information
Often Ex-Detainees will be released into the community to a place they have no knowledge of. This can be very daunting. We have helped a number of Ex-Detainees by providing crucial information such as directions to doctors, dentists and even reporting centres, as well as providing contact details of help available locally.
If you are an Ex-Detainee and would like to know how this project can benefit you, please call us and ask for the Ex-Detainee Project Manager. If you have any further questions, please contact us and we look forward to helping you.
Contact us on 0800 9179397 (free from a landline) or 01304 201535 (Monday to Friday, between 12 and 3 only)
Or send us a text on 07540 723238
Email: info@ddvg.org.uk
Download our leaflet for Ex-Detainees
The Ex Detainee Conference Report for June 2011 is available here
