Issue / challenge

An urgent response needed to be structured, from arrival onwards and with as integrated and coordinated an approach as possible. This response had to include: initial welcome and provision for basic needs, not only material (accommodation and living expenses), but also psycho-social (integration within the community and psychological support), as well as extracurricular educational backup, since the Basque Government recommendation was for children to be schooled from the outset.

This response also had to be adjusted in line with natural flows, in other words the fact that people would progressively arrive via a wide range of channels, and to a great extent were hosted by families. Although other individuals were also taken in by the national Spanish SAPIT (Temporary International Protection and Accommodation System) centres, SAPIT did not have the scale or design to handle flows of this scope and nature, nor does it make provision for cases of host families.

Goal / assumption

The structuring of 5 programmes covering both material and psycho-social needs from the outset, specifically through cooperation (public-social and public-public), could prove the best formula to generate an integrated hosting network through public responsibility and community action in response to a substantial and unexpected arrival of people, through natural flows and to host families.

Individuals and families of Ukrainian origin with temporary protection statute recognition, hosted by families or in homes provided by institutions, organisations and private individuals (free loan of homes) and with host families, along with local communities in order to stimulate organised citizen responses (local welcome and social integration networks) to support both the hosted individuals and families, and their hosts (respite, etc.).

The 5 programmes formed part of two successive contingency plans. The first was approved by the Board for the hosting of refugees from Ukraine, convened by the President of the Basque Government on 10 March 2022, involving all Basque public authorities at the highest level. The Monitoring Board was subsequently established, and remains active, involving the Basque Government, the Spanish Government Delegation and Social Sector organisations, coordinating the 5 programmes which have been put in place and/or collaborate with SAPIT.

The contingency plans structured various public sector measures (access to the health system, schooling from the outset, translation services…) together with these five programmes, thus deploying public-social cooperation to create a support network on arrival, with a public and also a community dimension, through social sector organisations and in conjunction with family hosting processes, which occurred as a natural consequence of prior relationships (Ukrainian diaspora in the Basque Country, families hosting children from Chernobyl…).

The 5 programmes are follows:

• INITIAL WELCOME PROGRAMME

This incorporates various temporary accommodation centres which form part of the first phase of SAPIT, along with other initial and transitory accommodation places for individuals and families moving on to other regions.

It includes the phone line +34 945 22 22 22 and initiatives providing information and guidance on arrival, coordinated by the Red Cross. These initiatives are supplemented by the publication of straightforward materials in Ukrainian, Basque and Spanish: FAQs, videos distributed via social media, posters to be put up at stations and points of arrival. A Guide to Hosting Ukrainian Individuals and Families is also produced and updated.

The Basque Country likewise provides a network of translators, identifying the people available in each district, and has brought in a translator at each of the police stations designated to handle applications for temporary protection statute recognition, one in each Basque territory or province.

•  AZKEN SAREA INDARTZEN UKRAINE

This is an economic support programme coordinated by the Caritas Euskadi charity together with a wide range of social sector organisations in the Basque Country, serving as a point of contact and support for Ukrainian individuals and families. The grants are intended for residents registered in the Basque Country, with temporary protection statute recognition, who have not waived access to SAPIT (the Temporary International Protection and Accommodation System) and are hosted with families or living in homes provided by institutions, organisations or private individuals (loaning of homes free of charge).

The monthly grant awarded is between 480 and 520 euros depending on the number of people belonging to the "cohabitation unit" (referring to the hosted family, typically women with one or two children in their care). The grant is intended for individuals and families displaced by the war in Ukraine who have no source of income in the Basque Country, with the reduction or termination of access to other grants or financial support to which they are entitled, or income from employment.

In the case of those hosted by families, this is to be understood as a grant allowing them to contribute to the host household's expenses and other expenses connected with what are seen as basic necessities, such as food, clothing, prescribed medication (where not covered by the health system), essential toiletries, transport and connectivity costs. The grant is established on a retroactive basis, from the moment when their residence with the family is accredited. This will not in any case be prior to March 2022, with a maximum period of six months from the accredited date.

• LOTURAK–Local hosting networks

This offers Ukrainian individuals and families support in the process of social integration, supplementing and assisting the efforts of the host families, through professional teams and local hosting groups made up of volunteers, who accompany Ukrainian individuals and families in their integration into the community. These initiatives form part of the community sponsorship model promoted in the Basque Country to take in migrants and those applying for asylum and refugee status.

Loturak also structures volunteering needs and offers received via errefuxiatuak@euskadi.eus. The programme provides online and face-to-face training for volunteers in such specific aspects as the situation of individuals and families displaced by the war in Ukraine, and puts those wishing to contribute as volunteers in touch with volunteering organisations working with such individuals, or local hosting groups within the LOTURAK network.

• BERRITZE-PSYCHO-SOCIAL SUPPORT PROGRAMME

Coordinated by the Agintzari cooperative, and covering three types of psycho-social support interventions, conducted in groups, and individually where necessary: 

Support for families hosting children from the area adjacent to the Chernobyl exclusion zone, helping them through the times of anguish and anxiety experienced during the Russian occupation of what was one of the first regions to be invaded.

Support for host households (both hosts and guests), providing them with preventive psychological educational spaces, preparation for coexistence and psycho-social support, and spaces for mutual assistance and listening, with professional support. This support also covers families hosting children from the area adjacent to the Chernobyl exclusion zone, since unlike their prior, familiar experience of summer or Christmas holidays, these are long-term hosting processes, including the mothers or other relatives of the guest children.

Psychological appraisal and care for individuals and families displaced by the war in Ukraine and facing situations of traumatic stress and/or complex grieving, including therapeutic approaches where necessary.

• AUKERAK SUSPERTZEN

This programme involves 25 Social Sector organisations in the Basque Country, coordinated by the Agintzari cooperative.

It focuses on: a) children and teenagers in primary or secondary education at state and grant-maintained schools facing difficulties in continuing their educational process (digital divide) and situations of social disadvantage; b) their families (parents, legal guardians). Including children and teenagers displaced by the war in Ukraine, and their parents or legal guardians. It offers:

Support for children and teenagers: Extracurricular educational backup: Study routines. Study techniques in face-to-face and remote contexts. Digital skills and media usage criteria. Language skills (Spanish and/or Basque).

This includes connectivity for children and teenagers from primary year 5 to secondary year 4 who do not have an appropriate device, and from primary year 1 to year 4, with online extracurricular educational support.

Support for families: Support for children in performing their educational tasks. Language skills. Digital skills and media usage criteria. Parental skills in this sphere.

The 5 programmes were successfully structured, addressing both material and psycho-social needs from arrival, linked in with one another and with other public sector initiatives. This was done through public-public (at all public authority levels) and public-social cooperation, with a substantial network of social sector organisations and public and social initiative support for host communities and families, along with a free-flowing relationship, sharing analyses and solutions with associations linked to Ukraine which were already in place or were set up by civil society or in the business sphere as a reaction to the war.

One single response thus involved all the relevant stakeholders and actors from all four sectors: public, private, social and community/family-based, channelling initial spontaneous responses, and enabling joined-up action by all of them, while also generating synergies. We believe that this constitutes a novel initiative (the only one of its kind within Spain, as far as we are aware), and good practice in the design of public policy and administration through a process of collegiate governance as well as public-public and public-social cooperation.

A collegiate and cooperative practice which has served to structure more and better responses to new and urgent situations which demanded innovation within the context of asylum and refugee policies.

This practice could be transferred to other regions and also to other situations (in the Basque Country), derived from prior public-social cooperation initiatives launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which served as facilitators and gave rise to programmes which have now become structural (permanent, and under public responsibility).

Aukerak Suspertzen and Azken Sarea Indartzen were launched during COVID-19. The first of these was strengthened to host Ukrainian children and teenagers. The second, designed to deal with situations of social emergency resulting from unexpected circumstances (such as the pandemic, the war in Ukraine…) was reactivated on this occasion, and will be used in similar circumstances in the future.

Aukerak Suspertzen has been integrated within the European Social Fund+ operational programme for the period 2021-2027 and Loturak, launched to host Ukrainian individuals and families, has become a structural programme within the policies and resources promoted by the Basque Government in the sphere of migration and asylum. Loturak programme is linked to a strand of intervention tied to community sponsorship (local networks hosting asylum-seekers and refugees) developed by the Basque Country as a further innovation within the SAPIT system, but which in this case has been applied to natural population flows.

The results in terms of the responses offered and the individual users have been subject to monthly monitoring, as detailed in the attached report.

The report was drawn up to mark the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, and provides detailed data as to the number of participants in each of the programmes, almost one year on from their launch. All the programmes were launched more or less simultaneously.

The individual and family beneficiaries of the fund are, as stated, children and teenagers, as well as their mothers or other relatives covered by the temporary protection statute as a result of the war in Ukraine, and their Basque host families, and also to an extent the local communities where local welcome groups have been set up, and which have thus developed capabilities linked to welcoming, diversity response and social cohesion.

This is a social rescue fund set up solely by the Basque Government, with a budget of 15.1 million euros which covers two strands and a range of programmes.

On the one hand, it guarantees support for particularly vulnerable groups within Basque society, with a budget of 9.3 million euros. On the other hand, the five programmes referred to have been assigned 5.8 million euros, distributed as follows:

• Initial welcome programme with funding of 1,500,000 euros
• Economic support programmes funded with 3,000,000 euros (Azken Sarea Ukraine).
• Local hosting network programmes adopting a community sponsorship model (Loturak-migrants), funded with 500,000 euros.
• Psycho-social care programme (Berritze), funded with 500,000 euros.
• Extracurricular educational backup programme (Aukerak Suspertzen), increased by 300,000 euros to tend to Ukrainian children and teenagers and their families (including the host families).