ACH (formerly Ashley Community Housing) is a social enterprise specialising in the resettlement of refugees through labour market and social integration.

We provide safe, secure and comfortable housing combined with culturally sensitive support and employability skills training. Our unique approach focuses on building individuals’ resilience in the labour market, up-skilling and supporting refugees into sustainable, higher-level employment to develop their independence and ease their integration into UK life.

Our model stems from 10 years of working with refugees. This holistic model has its heart focused on supporting refugees from arrival to integration through effective employment and enterprise skills. The process comprises 5 key stages: accommodation, support, work skills, enterprising skills, and move on.

ACH provides a diverse range of fully supported housing options to meet the needs of our clients. Our support services are culturally sensitive, available across all tenures and provided as part of our clients’ occupancy agreement. We provide an end-to-end, personalised service that is adaptable and designed to empower our tenants to live independently.

We do this by segmenting refugees into 4 categories:

• Skilled and work ready

• Skilled and nearly ready for work

• Open or not yet in business

• Not ready for work

These 4 broad categories then receive differing levels and types of support, including IAG, personal development and CPD, to enable them to be fast-tracked into employment.

Whilst there is undoubtedly a humanitarian angle to refugee resettlement, we look beyond the short-term humanitarian response. We see refugees as people with talents, skills, and aspirations, assets which will boost our economy and enrich our communities. We don’t focus on the story on how they came to be here, we focus on where they want to be.

This message is disseminated via our #rethinkingrefugee campaign, which has been running since 2015, born as a reaction to the negative portrayal of refugees in the media. This campaign is currently focused on attracting more employer partners to work directly with us to hire refugees.