About Us

Starling Collective has a particpatory and collaborative approach in supporting and empowering people who are seeking asylum or have been granted refugee status. We have a steering group of people with lived experience who helps decide, design and deliver the services that we provide. We seek to be innovative, pioneering and innovative in our work. Our projects are informed by people with lived experience holistically by their needs rather than what we have assumed they need.

We see the human person, beyond a label, their experience or situation. Starling provides a compassionate, safe space of welcome and hope, where we can co-create, learn from and empower each other. We realise that our community members have as much to contribute to our lives and society as we do to theirs. We honour their resilience, capacity and skills, along with celebrating and sharing our cultural difference and heritages. We acknowledge how inhumane the and dehumanising the asylum process is and that we do not always have a solution, but walk alongside, offering suport where we can.

Our work is volunteer and community based. The ongoing support, development and training of our volunteers is key to the delivery and success of our work. We offer support, advice and opportunities through a range of services including: a holistic person centred advice and support service for people who are seeking asylum or have been granted refugee status that is delivered by volunteers with lived experience, help with accessing volunteering, education, training and employment, welfare support. A Trauma Informed Approach mental health support programme. Accommodation, financial, practical and emotional support for  people from the refugee and asylum community who are destitute or homeless.