The Refugee Council’s Head of Refugee Involvement, Yusuf Ciftci, reflects on the foundational elements of our refugee involvement strategy and the pioneer project approach. 

Since I joined the Refugee Council almost a year ago, I have been fortunate to work together with dedicated staff and refugees in establishing foundations for a meaningful and purposeful approach to refugee involvement. We are on a journey to deliver a “whole organisation” approach, which is an ambitious goal that requires creating a culture of learning around involving people with lived experience.  

As we are now moving from the planning to the testing stage in our Refugee Involvement Strategy and Delivery Plan, I want to reflect on a few crucial aspects of our approach to purposeful involvement of refugees. 

We’re putting a strong emphasis on creating a culture of learning that permeates every aspect of our involvement work at the Refugee Council. By prioritising learning, we’re looking to institutionalise practices that foster meaningful involvement, support and recognition of contributions by refugees. It is a challenging task, especially as we aim to combine our organisational goals with the relevant lived expertise of refugees. Meaningful co-production is a time- and resource-intensive endeavour, so it was important for us to take stock, review good practice and establish systems and policies before we test our new co-production methodology. 

We are on a journey to deliver a whole organisation approach, which is an ambitious goal that requires creating a culture of learning around involving people with lived experience.

The main prerequisites for meaningful involvement are clear policies and guidance. So for example, this means not only creating accessible and generous expenses policies around refugee involvement, but also providing recommendations on how to best recognise and value the contributions of refugees in less tangible ways. We developed an expenses policy that introduces rewards for contributions, and we constantly seek ways of doing this in the safest way for individuals with lived experience so that they are not financially disadvantaged because of their involvement with us. This approach challenges existing norms, acknowledging the expertise brought by those with lived experiences. 

We’ve also developed a recruitment policy and a feedback policy that form the backbone of our commitment to a reciprocal partnership in co-production. The recruitment policy conceptualises relevant lived experience based on factors such as topic, time and impact, ensuring that involvement is not only meaningful but aligns with the topical issues we address through our pioneer projects. 

We’ve embedded refugee involvement in the induction training for new staff and volunteers, and the involvement team constantly communicates with other teams through training, drop-in sessions, team days and away days. We aim to equip all our teams with the knowledge and tools necessary to involve refugees effectively. Methods of involvement, support mechanisms, and avenues for decision-making become visible and accessible across all levels, from our frontline to our back-office colleagues. We want to see refugee involvement as an ordinary activity, with all systems embedded in our way of working to transform the experience of people seeking protection. 

We want to see refugee involvement as an ordinary activity, with all systems embedded in our way of working to transform the experience of people seeking protection.

I am conscious that refugee involvement is only one element that we can shift power to experts by experience, and it is only one part of the culture change we are going through. It has been amazing to see interconnected projects that supports this power shift, including a reform of recruitment and selection process (with guaranteed interview slots for people with lived experience who meets minimum criteria), a career development project for staff and volunteers with lived experience, and an equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging project that recognises the uniqueness of lived experience.

All of these initiatives give me confidence that we’re paving the way for a future at the Refugee Council where refugee voices are not only heard but play a central role in shaping our decisions, mission and vision. ■

Let us know what you think about our ambitions regarding involving people with lived experience. We are happy to share our learnings so far, so please don’t hesitate to email us if you’d like to have a chat!