Services - Firvale Community Hub

FIRVALE COMMUNITY HUB ADVICE PROJECT

Firvale Community Hubs Advice Project continues to see an increase in the number of cases relating to the economic climate creating a higher demand for intensive services.

The main enquiry
types that were presented are:

Welfare Benefits/rights/universal credit
Immigration services/EU settlement
Housing
Tenancy advice on evictions
Consumer and Utilities
Employment law

All the above categories, with the exception of immigration, can to an extent be argued to be related to the economic climate, although we have always had large numbers of users accessing the service among these categories.

However, the types of cases in the different categories have changed – we are seeing higher numbers of Universal Credit applicants, higher numbers of appeals and tribunals.

We continue to gain better diversity amongst our clients, with larger numbers of white British service users than ever before.

This demonstrates our commitment to providing services for the whole community to benefit from, and further strengthens and consolidates our position as a neighbourhood centre.

We have adopted new working practices to ensure a streamlined service, with lower waiting times for clients and more efficiency for staff.

This includes a triage system, whereby simple cases are dealt with very quickly and clients, who do not have all the required documentation for their case to be dealt with at a single visit, are given a checklist to enable them to return and have their case dealt with as quickly as possible, and to prevent people waiting needlessly.

This has worked extremely well and feedback from clients has been very positive.

Our specialist services
continue to operate

including the EU migrants advice drop-in service (which we have continued despite funding being cut), and the women-only session.

We have also added a Somali drop-in session once per week utilising a Somali staff member, to respond to the needs of the local Somali community.

We offer a range of support and advice relating to visa applications, help with completing British passport applications, renewal of passports and overseas ID cards along with advice and support with visa extension applications, settlement, nationality.

We continue to see an increasing number of clients with immigration related queries, whether it is asking for advice on how to complete visa extension forms, or more complex queries from clients who have overstayed their visas.

The organisation works to high quality standards and is accredited by AQS, OISC.

Events & Awards

Firvale Community Hub has been achieving a number of awards in all aspects of its delivery.
These have been given to FCH for the outstanding contributions made to the life’s of people in the city of Sheffield.