Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group

Supporting people during and after detention

For current volunteers

Please see here our latest update on our work during the Covid-19 outbreak.

Giving phone support

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is not currently possible to visit Brook House or Tinsley House. We have produced a phone support guidance document, that you can find here. It’s the first chapter of our learning on phone support and open to all of you to add to, from your experience as visitors offering phone support.

Every time you encounter a new situation or a new learning opportunity for us all, please share it and if you send it to Karris, it’ll be added to our notes. We love advice sheets that don’t ossify but grow with our combined learning. View the Phone Support notes here.

Upcoming visitor group meetings

All Visitor Support Group meetings are currently via Zoom – please contact the office for info

Reigate: 26 April at 2:30pm

Crawley and Horsham: 26 April 5:30pm

Oxted: 19 April at 12:30pm

Brighton:  17 May 6:00pm

Upcoming training

This will be updated with upcoming trainings as they arise.

Upcoming walks

Walk With Us are monthly events that keep our walking community connected all year round. Before the Covid-19 pandemic we walked in a large group, however during Covid-19 these walks have been replaced with small walking pods and online gatherings.

Walk With Us is open to people who have experienced detention, GDWG visitors, Refugee Tales walkers and anyone else who would like to join us! If you are interested in being a regular part of this walking community please email: refugeetales@gdwg.org.uk for more information.

The upcoming walks/Zooms in 2021 are:

  • 10 April
  • 8 May
  • 12 June

Please contact refugeetales@gdwg.org.uk to join.

Volunteer policies

The Volunteer Handbook contains all the essential information you need when volunteering with GDWG. You can download the Visitors Handbook here.

GDWG Volunteer policies are available to view and download here:

Safeguarding report forms:

Volunteer Expense Claim Form

Please click here to download the expense claim form.  Please complete, sign, and return to Marygold or Anna by email or post.

 

Volunteer Visitor Feedback Form

This form relates to your contact with a specific individual you have supported in or post-detention. Please fill in this form:

  • When your visits stop
  • Every 3 months

Introduction: Please fill in this form as accurately and as fully as you can. Your feedback is very important to us for a couple of reasons. Firstly, many of our large funders require us to provide regular monitoring and evaluation reports, and your detailed feedback is vital in complying with that requirement. Secondly, your feedback helps us understand better the issues you, our volunteer visitors, face in our core role of helping those in detention, so that we can improve the support we give both to those in detention and to you. The information also helps us with our future applications for funding and for other purposes such as policy outreach, awareness raising, PR etc. Thank you.

Volunteer Feedback - For GDWG Visitors Only

Did you keep in touch between visits (by phone, text or email)?

If relevant, did you experience any difficulties accessing the person in detention:

Which language did you mainly speak during visits?

Did language barriers make your contacts/visits difficult?

Have you noticed any improvement in the person’s spoken English over the course of your support?

To what extent do you agree with each of these statements?

“I was able to establish trust”

“I was able to understand the person’s needs”

“There were no issues about boundaries”

Did you help the person in any of these ways:

Provided them with emotional support

Did you tell them about life/culture in the UK?

Provided them with other useful information:

Did you signpost to any other agencies?

To what extent do you think the person you supported experienced the following while in detention or post-detention

Loneliness/Isolation

Anxiety

Depression

To what extent do you think your visits/contacts made a difference to these aspects of their experience? [please answer not relevant if answers to 10a were “not at all”]

Helped alleviate loneliness or isolation

Helped alleviate anxiety

Helped alleviate depression

Digital Consent