Please note that in addition to these emails, all hosts will receive information from us relating to DBS checks, accommodation checks, £350 monthly host and £350 one-off guest payments; hosts should already have received information from us about this through our welcome email.

For any questions not covered in this e-newsletter or on our Support for Ukraine webpages, please email duty.communities@scambs.gov.uk

Grants for activities and education

Financial help is now being offered to Ukrainian families to help them to integrate into British community life thanks to a new grant scheme launched this week by South Cambridgeshire District Council. Up to £300 per project is offered for a wide range of events to help reduce social isolation and encourage families to feel involved in their local community and life in Britain. A grant fund total of £20,000 is open for applicants until the end of the 2022/23 financial year funded by central government. Project ideas include buying books for English language classes, ingredients to fund a cookery day, venue hire or travel costs to take Ukrainian guests on a trip to Cambridge to see the sights. But, as we say, the most important aim is to help people to integrate.

Parish councils, community groups, informal groups or individual hosts can apply. Applications will be assessed weekly to ensure a quick turnaround. Criteria, guidance and an application form can be found on our website.

If you have any questions about these grants, please email ukraine.grants@scambs.gov.uk

Bikeability training

As part of our initiative with two local charities (OWL Bikes and Camtrust) to offer free bicycles to guests from Ukraine, we are pleased to be able now to announce the dates for the free Bikeability training sessions that will be delivered by Outspoken Training. There will be a translator at each session. These will be at one of two locations in Cambridge: either Lammas Land (CB3 9EY) or Coleridge Recreation Ground (CB1 3PR).

There are four different levels to choose from depending on ability:

• Children’s Bikeability Level 1 (Off-road fun: Level 1 challenges pupils to control and master their bikes through a variety of playground games. The training aims to boost confidence and excite participants to cycle more off-road. Minimum age: 7 years old)
• Children’s Bikeability Level 2 (Residential rider: Level 2 takes place on local roads around school that Year 5 and 6 pupils are likely to cycle on. Children receive a realistic cycling experience equipping them with the skills to cycle short journeys e.g., to school. Riders are educated on effective observations, understanding road priorities, communicating with other road users and effective road positioning. Minimum age: 9 years old)
• Adult return to cycling
• Adult residential riders

The dates and times of the courses are:

• Friday 22 July 2022; 10.00am – 1.00pm – Tamsin and Sue – Children’s Bikeability Level 1 – Lammas Land (CB3 9EY)
• Friday 29 July 2022; 10.00am – 1.00pm – Rob and Sara – Children’s Bikeability Level 1 – Coleridge Recreation Ground (CB1 3PR)
• Friday 5 August 2022; 10.00am – 1.00pm – Rob and Sara – Adult return to cycling – Lammas Land (CB3 9EY)
• Friday 19 August 2022; 10.00am – 1.00pm – Tamsin and Hugh – Children’s Bikeability Level 2 – Lammas Land (CB3 9EY)
• Saturday 20 August 2022; 10.00am – 1.00pm – Tamsin and TBC – Adult residential riders – Coleridge Recreation Ground (CB1 3PR)
• Saturday 27 August 2022; 10.00am – 1.00pm – Rob and Hugh – Children’s Bikeability Level 2 – Coleridge Recreation Ground (CB1 3PR)

Please encourage your guests to book their free session via the Outspoken bookings page but only if they have already received their free bike or had one loaned to them. If you are still waiting, you will be able to book onto a future session once further dates have been released.

On the day: please inform your trainer of your bike order number so we can keep track of who has booked onto a session. If you need a reminder of your order number, please email CLP@scambs.gov.uk

If guests cannot make any of the sessions, we also want to highlight the useful and free Transport for London online cycle skills course which guests may find beneficial

Coming soon: Cambridge University Botanic Garden free pass scheme

The Cambridge University Botanic Garden is generously providing free admission to the Botanic Garden for Ukrainian refugees. Their goal is to welcome Ukrainian refugees to the Garden, give them access to a beautiful green space in Cambridge, and show them what the Garden has to offer as an educational and leisure facility in the city.

Free tickets will be offered for those over the age of 16 (children 16 and under are already admitted free of charge). Host families will need to pay the standard garden admission fee.

The tickets will be offered (one per person) from next week and guests will soon be able to register their interest in receiving an admission ticket by filling out an application form. Tickets will be distributed weekly via post; more information will be available in our next bulletin.

Please let us know if your guests are moving on

Please remember that, if your guests are planning to move on into alternative accommodation or have already done so, it is important that you let us know. This is so that we can update our records and adjust any payments accordingly. If this is the case for your guests, please email duty.communities@scambs.gov.uk as soon as possible, and include your name, address and details of the guests who have moved elsewhere.

Online course: How to speak in clear and simple English to the refugee in your home

Please see the attached PDF flyer which is about a 90-minute ongoing course, offered online, called ‘How To Speak in Clear and Simple English to the Refugee in Your Home’. It’s in the evenings and held via Zoom. Hosts just attend once. There is a minimum donation of £1 and all proceeds go to West End Refugee Service. Only hosts can attend this version and their refugee can be from anywhere. Sign-up to attend a course online or email info@englishunlocked.co.uk if you have any questions.

Short guide to financial support available

The Think Communities Team at Cambridgeshire County Council have provided us with the attached document which may help some of your guests to access more support about which they may not yet be aware. It contains information on benefits checking, energy saving, budget planning, debt help, grants and more. Please share it with anyone that you feel may benefit.

Upcoming jobs fair

Jobcentre Plus in Cambridgeshire have announced that they will be holding a jobs fair for Ukrainian jobseekers. This will take place at the Cambridge Job Centre, Henry Giles House, 73 – 79 Chesterton Rd, Cambridge, CB4 3BQ on Wednesday 27 July 2022 from 10am to 1pm. There are so far around 20 employers confirmed as attending, including Asda, Aspire, Atlas Hotels, Cambridge Network, EACH, Hain Daniels, Hilton, Hotel Du Vin, Murray Edwards College, Office Angels, Select Recruitment, South Cambridgeshire District Council, Teka Services, Compass Group, Nat West Enterprise, Office Angels and St Catherine’s College. Hosts are welcome to attend with their guests. For more information, please email Dawn.Bere@dwp.gov.uk

Additionally, if guests have questions around seeking a job, please email Dawn.Bere@dwp.gov.uk who will be able to help advise on matters such as setting up a national insurance number, obtaining proof of right to work and signing up for Universal Credit. Dawn can assist with these elements and can have translation services on standby.

Rotary Club of Royston

The Rotary club of Royston is committed to helping Ukrainian refugees feel welcome in the community and to facilitate various social events. A new monthly café will be starting soon, to provide morning coffee and cakes to local Ukrainian families. Once a month local Ukrainian families can meet and spend time getting to know each other. The first venue will be The Chequers at Barley and will run from 10am -12noon at a date to be confirmed. The pub has a large garden where children can relax and play. The Royston Rotary Club may be able to provide free transport to some families needing assistance. Hosts are also welcome. If guests (and hosts) would like to attend, please contact ukraine@roystonrotary.com for more information and to register your interest.

Reminder about Informal in-person get together for hosts next Tuesday (12 July) from 6pm to 8pm in Cambourne

Following on from our informal event for Ukrainian Guests on Tuesday 28 June, we would remind you that we are also hosting a session for Ukrainian hosts from 6pm to 8pm on Tuesday next week (12 July) at South Cambridgeshire Hall, Cambourne Business Park, Cambourne, CB23 6EA. This is a free drop-in event for Ukrainian hosts to network, have a bite to eat and find out more about the support (for both hosts and guests) that is available locally. We are asking hosts to register on Eventbrite, including indicating the number of people who will be coming as part of your group. This will help us to plan for the event. However, if you do not register in advance but circumstances change so that you are able to make it, you can still come along on the day.

CRRC works with Laptops4Learning (L4L) to deliver laptops locally. L4L’s TechAidUK solution brings together businesses and charities/organisations to enable sustainable and social good. They take donations of much-needed devices from businesses and repair and refurbish them, making them plug-and-play ready, complete with chargers and software, ready for CRRC to distribute to Ukrainian families. Having tech refurbished for reuse enables businesses to reach their sustainability goals at this time of climate emergency, saving CO2 emissions, e-waste and the extraction of scarce natural resources.

After you arrange to make a donation L4L send their Tech Couriers to collect your devices at a pre-arranged time and date. They then take them to their repair centre in Stevenage where they are refurbished and all data securely erased to HMG InfoSec Standard 5 Enhanced. A certificate of erasure is issued for each device and provided by serial number to the company donating.

Full audits are provided detailing the devices collected, along with feedback on who received the donations and data for CSR, which can be used in corporate newsletters and social media. Sustainability figures on waste are also provided.

If your business would like to help by donating laptops or if you have questions and would like more information on the scheme please contact sue@laptops4learning.co.uk or Admin_TeamUkraine@cambridgerefugees.org

The online information hub is our equivalent of a ‘Welcome pack’ for guests (we are sharing information digitally so that we are able to keep our information regularly updated, and guests should be able to switch to view in their own language if they wish).

Please note that in addition to these emails, all hosts will receive information from us directly relating to DBS checks, accommodation checks, £350 monthly host and £350 one-off guest payments; hosts should already have received information from us about this through our welcome email.

For any questions not covered in this e-newsletter or on our Support for Ukraine webpages, please email duty.communities@scambs.gov.uk

Updates to our Support for Ukraine pages since our last email

A reminder that all of the information we have published so far is on our Support for Ukraine webpages and in this email you will only find the latest updates that have become available since our last email. If you have not previously visited our webpages, we would suggest that is the best place to start for information for guests.

Guest arrival payment being increased from £200 to £350 per guest

As you are probably aware, the Government scheme provides an initial £200 payment per guest to help them with essential costs. However, Government guidance allows local authorities to have flexibility in deciding whether more is needed in the first few weeks after a guest arrives. Hosts and guests in South Cambridgeshire have told us that guests are running out of money in the first month and before longer-term arrangements have been established (both Universal Credit and payment from employment can take a number of weeks before an initial payment is made).

In response to this, South Cambridgeshire District Council is adding a further £150 payment to each guest in our district. This means that guests who are already living here and have received a £200 payment will be contacted to confirm arrangements for a £150 top-up payment. Hosts should have received an email from colleagues yesterday and please note that we need guests to complete a short form before we are able to process these payments. Guests who are yet to arrive will be paid the new amount of £350 per guest. If you are a host who has received a link to our application form for the £150 top-up payments, please do not forward this on to others. We are only able to make these payments to eligible guests living in the district of South Cambridgeshire.

Using pre-payment cards

Many guests have received, or will soon receive, a pre-paid card from us with the initial one-off payment to help with essential costs. Please note that we are asking guests to activate their card in a situation where a PIN is needed – for instance in a supermarket – so that it can be used thereafter for contactless payments in places such as on public transport where PIN verification is not always available. We are now sending a letter to all guests who are sent a pre-paid card that sets this out, along with details about how to set up their card, how to access their PIN, and how to check the balance in their account. The letter will be sent in the language guests have indicated is preferred as well as in English. But if hosts could help remind guests to make sure their first transaction is somewhere where PIN verification is available, this would be very helpful.

Update on bus travel for guests form Ukraine

We have been working with Cambridgeshire County Council and bus operator Stagecoach to agree further support for Ukrainian guests. A countywide scheme has been agreed that will see all new arrivals provided with 10 free bus tickets. Each ticket will allow unlimited journeys within Cambridgeshire for one day and are not time limited. We have agreement from the bus operator for the scheme to run until December but the County Council is working through the details with Stagecoach, so please bear with us as this may take a couple of weeks to finalise. Once the scheme is ready, we will contact hosts to ask for help in ensuring that guests are aware of it. The information we send will include how the tickets are accessed. We will be backdating the scheme so any guests who arrived before the scheme launched will still be provided with this support. The tickets are being provided to Cambridgeshire councils at a discounted rate by Stagecoach who are keen to support guests and we are grateful for their support.

Free bicycles for guests from Ukraine

Guests from Ukraine can request a free, good quality, second-hand bicycle as part of a collaboration between the District Council and two local charities – OWL Bikes and Camtrust. Helmets and locks will also be supplied, free of charge. The Council will also provide guests with details of a free Bikeability cycle training course, which will include translation services.

Once a guest applies for a bike and the Council has confirmed that they are eligible, they will be put in touch with the supplier nearest to them so that they can arrange to collect their bicycle. Wherever possible we are asking for hosts to help guests collect bikes, but where no transport is immediately available for hosts to do so, such as if the host family has no car, local volunteers and community groups may be able to assist. The Council can help link hosts and guests with their local community group and District Councillors if needed and guests or hosts can ask for this support. Refer any queries or concerns regarding bicycle collection by emailing: duty.communities@scambs.gov.uk

Additional language support offer

We have previously shared offers of English language tuition from Cambridge Regional College, Workers’ Educational Association and Cambridgeshire Skills. Recently, we have added information on our website about another provider, CamRuss, which is supporting Ukrainian guests and hosts in Cambridge and the surrounding area. On the CamRuss website guests can complete a form to request free English language and cultural adaptation sessions.

Cambridge Regional College are keen for guests to know what opportunities there are for a range of post-16 and adult education programmes available from September onwards which includes English language tuition. There is an open day being held on Wednesday 15 June from 4.30pm to 7pm at the Cambridge Campus, King’s Hedges Road, CB4 2QT. More information can also be found by visiting CRC’s open day webpage

Please let us know if you have further queries or concerns regarding access to English language tuition; we will do all we can to give support.

Free School Meals

Attached to this email is an application form that eligible guest families can use to apply for temporary entitlement to Free School meals and Holiday Vouchers. This is different to application forms that are on Cambridgeshire County Council’s Free School Meals webpages; the attached form allows for parents or carers to apply who have submitted a Universal Credit application but who do not yet have a National Insurance (NI) number.

When your guests arrive

Thank you to a current host who shared some insights with us that may be useful for other hosts whose guests are yet to arrive.

“When your guests arrive they might be traumatised and exhausted so, rather than rush them and organising their lives, we wrote a list of essential ‘to dos’ and said to them that they could tell us what they wanted to do and when. Examples included getting SIM cards, bank accounts, applying for universal credit, registering with doctors etc.

“We had an honest conversation and said from the outset that we came from different cultures and backgrounds and so we should be open with each other so that neither of us ever offended or upset the other … and our bond has just become deeper and deeper.

“We had a ‘build your own pizza’ evening where we all made pizzas, it became a competition and we all tasted each other’s. Even not being able to speak English was not a barrier to communication doing that together. It also helps to have Google translate on during meals.”

Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

As you will be aware, the UK will have a four day weekend next week to mark Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Your guests may not know what to expect over the four day weekend and may appreciate some background information about the weekend, as well as some help to work out how they can join in with activities happening over the weekend.

The best place to find background information about the Queen’s 70-year reign is on the Royal Family’s Jubilee website. There is also a dedicated Jubilee website, where you can find a map of events and information about how to get involved, including street parties, Big Jubilee Lunches, London’s Trooping the Colour, a Service of Thanksgiving, a concert and pageant. There is also an activity pack for children to help them learn about The Queen’s reign, recipes from well-known celebrities, and a Spotify playlist.

We know many people want to support the scheme locally who may not have been able to be a host. You may know of people with the skills we are looking for. Maybe they are retired or not in work now but would be keen to commit to a role to help deliver this important work.

What we are looking for?

• Commitment to work at least 3 days a week, up to full time, for one year

• Good communicator

• Previous experience or knowledge in safeguarding would be advantageous

• Good listener and ability to empathise and give advice to Ukrainian guests who may be suffering from trauma

• The ability to travel using own car all over South Cambridgeshire to visit the homes of hosts

• Ability to use Council translating services to support conversations with guests where necessary

• Good attention to detail to ensure information from visits is logged correctly and any issues reported and referred to relevant service

• Confidence to ask guests or hosts further questions to uncover underlying issues

• Sensitivity to cultural differences and able to put people with a variety of backgrounds at ease

• Confidence working with basic Microsoft computer programmes such as Word, Excel and Outlook as spreadsheets are used for recording and collating information

We are looking for people who can start quickly to support the team.

The hourly rate for the role is £13.33 to £15.93

Anyone wanting to find out more should email Susan and Dan on susan.hinawski@scambs.gov.uk and Daniel.toussaint@scambs.gov.uk. Please include in your message that you are interested in the role and provide your contact details. Susan or Dan will call you back as soon as possible to discuss the role.