BASW update on Ukraine - 6th April 2022

Read the latest update and actions by BASW

The war in Ukraine continues to cause devastation to Ukrainians both still in the country, and those who have fled their homes for sanctuary in other countries.

There is increasing evidence of civilian deaths and persecution, and agencies including the UN and Ukrainian government are already collecting evidence of possible war crimes by Russian military. 

Visas granted

In the UK, the Government published statistics on how many Ukrainians had been granted visas, with the totals as of 31st March standing at:

  • Ukraine Family Scheme visas: 24,400
  • Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme visas (Homes for Ukraine): 4,700

This is a tiny figure in comparison to the millions of people fleeing Ukraine: it is estimated that there are some 2.1 million refugees in Poland alone.

BASW has produced information for Ukrainian refugees - Coming to the UK: Information for Ukrainian refugees (16 March 2022)

Homes for Ukraine

While the Ukraine Family Scheme allows Ukrainian nationals to join family members already in the UK, the Homes for Ukraine allows Ukrainian nationals to live with volunteer hosts in the UK. A key issue is that there is no matching system in place, leaving both Ukrainian nationals and hosts to try and match to each other by informal means for example, through social media. As well as creating a major bottleneck this also creates safeguarding issues. Some limited funding has been put in place at local level, however this is woefully inadequate given the year-on-year cuts suffered by local authorities since 2010.

BASW Action

  • BASW members attended meeting on Ukraine last week (31 March) and shared concerns, ideas and longer-term plans. The meeting was very helpful and we will be coming back to those who met with updates, actions and ways to keep in touch. We will report on actions in the bulletin for all members too.  Any member can ask to be kept informed of specific developments by emailing us here policyadmin@basw.co.uk
  • Social workers are on the front-line of the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Poland, the Slovak Republic, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) is the world-wide body that represents national social work organisations. At the request of the Secretary General of the IFSW, BASW members overseeing the use of our International Development Fund (IDF) have decided to donate £10,000 to the fund established by IFSW for resources to go directly to social workers in Ukraine and to support the coordinating and support activities of colleagues at the borders.

BASW will continue to update members on the situation in Ukraine.

View all udpates, action and statement on the war in Ukraine