Home Office Pre-Approval Call

After you have been matched with a family, the Home Office Community Sponsorship Team will arrange a Skype call with your group. This is known as the "Pre-Approval Visit" or "PAV".

Who is invited?

• Home Office Application Contact - this is the person who follows your application, and can answer questions before the family arrive
• Home Office Contact Officer - this is the person who will support you once the family arrive. They support all resettled families in the region.
• Local Authority - this is the main contact at the LA. If you are in a dual-Local Authority area, both contacts will be invited.
• Lead Sponsor
• Group Members

Which Group Members should attend?

Group members who are best informed about the groups plans should ideally be available to attend. Project leaders will not be expected to have all the answers, so ensure that other Group members are present.

This could include the leads for Safeguarding, ESOL, Accommodation, Finance, Schools and Health. But don't worry if not everyone can join. 3-4 people, with a good knowledge of your plans is sufficient.

What can we expect?

A “meeting with the Home Office” may sound like an intimidating experience, but there is no need to worry. Many Groups have said that their PAV was an informal conversation with the Home Office and a great opportunity for the Group to ask questions and connect with the Local Authority too. In the PAV, the Home Office representatives may ask you to elaborate on some of the points made in your application or ask you to look into certain areas of support in more detail.

The last 20 minutes of your meeting will include scenario-based questions to give your Group a chance to demonstrate your preparedness for common challenges in Community Sponsorship. These scenario-based questions will range from how you plan to approach specific safeguarding concerns to how you will deal challenges like managing expectations. 

Remember that the Home Office Community Sponsorship Team are excited about this programme and want you to succeed. There is no pass or fail in a PAV. However, after the meeting the Home Office may ask you to do a bit more work on certain parts of your application before they give you approval or approval in principle (AIP).

Your Local Authority will also be given the opportunity to ask you questions

You can ask any questions you have directly to the Home Office.

Top Tips:

Check out Reset's top tips for preparing for your Pre-Approval Visit.