Early Action is a project of
Refugee Action Good Practice
Too often people seeking safety in the UK are forced into poverty and denied access to justice. We want to ensure better outcomes for these people.
As a sector, we primarily address crises: poverty, homelessness and poor health. Early Action takes the opposite approach. It says let's prevent problems from happening and de-escalate them promptly if they start to arise.
Early Action would help reduce pressure on crisis intervention services. We aim to see fewer people needing crisis support and needing that support for less time.
The Panel members were EBE representatives from the Early Action partner organisations.
They met 4 times a year in person and later online.
The group inputted into the development of Early Action approaches and informed how organisations can best deliver Early Action services and measure their impact.
The group's work paved the way for further work on organisation approaches to inclusion, participation and shifting power.
The partnership received new funding in January 2022, are together are delivering the Explore, Adapt, Renew programme, also funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.
We continue to create a community around Early Action and provide resources and research with the ambition of making lasting change.
While many organisations working with asylum seekers and refugees recognise the importance of preventative approaches, we need to work together to build expertise and develop capacity.
We want to use the breadth of our partnership and growing evidence base to influence funders' perception of our sector. We would like to see a funding approach that encourages quality of outcomes over quantity of outputs.
The Early Action Charter for People Seeking Asylum Programme, ran from July 2018 - July 2021, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.
The funding, together with capital raised by Refugee Action, brought together eight diverse frontline organisations from the refugee sector, working across England, to establish a partnership to test, evaluate and share Early Action approaches to service delivery.
