Lived Experience Group

The No Recourse North East Partnership started a Lived Experience group for people with a status of NRPF in June 2023 and we have met every 6-8 weeks since then. As a group we have worked on

• a document which sets out our policy on Reward for Involvement of people with lived experience of NRPF  -With thanks to City of Sanctuary for the model for this policy.
• deciding priorities for our meetings – the first of which is to look at employability services in Aberdeen and see what they can offer.

On 20th November 2023 we were pleased to invite Malcolm Pritchard from Pathways (https://pathways-online.org/) to our meeting and we had a engaging discussion around what services are available to people with no recourse to public funds.

People who are on a student visa are already considered to be on a ‘pathway to employment’ and therefore would not be able to register with an employability service such as Pathways. However, if you are here post study, for example on a Graduate visa, then you may. Similarly a Graduate non UK national with NRPF status could register with the Business Gateway service if they were interested in setting up their own enterprise.

Collaborative resources from elsewhere

Below are some useful resources from organisations already working in a participatory way on the issue of NRPF:

The Runnymede Trust briefing at https://nrnepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/PASAR-and-Runnymede-Briefing.pdf on Participatory Action Research
Engaging marginalised communities in policy and practice

The Praxis project have a manifesto called Living with Dignity: a Campaign to end the No recourse to Public Funds Policy at https://nrnepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Living-With-Dignity-Manifesto.pd

The Unity Project provide support to people who are facing poverty and/or homelessness as a result of their immigration status and the systemic discrimination behind it. Specifically, they assist destitute people with ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ (NRPF).