Values

Thrive’s key values are dignity, collaboration, flexibility, wholistic support, compassion, humility, courage, and prayer. (Over time we hope to fine-tune this so that it isn’t so long and wordy, but we haven’t yet got around to making this more concise!)

• Dignity: Every person who engages with us is worthy of dignity and respect, and should be treated as such. Asylum seekers and refugees are often denied this, and are treated disgracefully or forced to survive in situations where their dignity is not honoured – but in all we do, we strive to support people’s inherent human dignity and worthiness of respect. 
• Collaboration: We don’t want to reinvent the wheel, and so we work in collaboration with other support services and relevant organisations locally in order to enable asylum seekers and refugees to access what they need. We receive referrals from a number of different charities and organisations, and we refer people to various charities and organisations too. We also work in collaboration with a number of churches, plugging people in there where appropriate; working with volunteers sent/commissioned by different churches; receiving practical-needs items and gifts towards Christmas hampers from various local churches. 
• Flexibility: We recognise that people’s lives and situations don’t always fit into neat boxes. We work flexibly to support people in the most appropriate and relevant ways possible. Flexibly and with sensitivity, we support people to grow in their gifts, talents and passions, in order that they might heal, grow and thrive in community, contributing to society in meaningful ways and serving others around them. Part of this involves flexibility with our own processes and creating space for asylum seekers and refugees to volunteer where appropriate, building their skills and expertise, developing their CVs, settling in community.
• Wholistic support: We believe that God wants people to experience life in all its fullness / life in abundance (John 10:10) – we endeavour to support people to ultimately thrive in different areas of their life. We support people to grow in their mental health, physical health, relational/social health, spiritual health, etc, recognising that wellbeing involves all of these areas and they are often interconnected. We look to support people practically and pastorally, and make space for people to build healthy relationships and have fun too.
• Compassion: We endeavour to express the love and compassion of Jesus in all our interactions. Many of the people we support have endured unimaginable suffering, and are living with deep trauma. At times this can lead to people making unwise decisions or engaging in unhealthy ways – even in these moments, we treat them with love and compassion, trying our best to understand and offer appropriate support where we can. We also recognise the risk of burnout and of secondhand trauma in this work, but strive to remain compassionate towards each individual rather than becoming hardened to it all.
• Humility: We cannot fix, save or rescue the people we work with, and we do not have all the answers. We endeavour to remain humble in our interactions, supporting people with gentleness and grace, and hoping to learn and grow through each interaction rather than taking a stance of superiority or a saviour complex. In light of this, we also take this stance in conversations about faith – we aim to remain humble and adopt a posture of learning, while also being open about our conviction that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  
• Courage: We recognise that some of our interactions with people will be challenging, and that we sometimes need courage to engage well. Courage is required to interact calmly in broken English with someone who is in great distress and struggling to communicate their situation. Courage is required to talk healthily about topics that might cause offence, such as deep differences in worldview, culture or faith, or perspectives on political topics. Courage may be required to offer bespoke 1-1 support to someone with particular need, or to enter potentially inhospitable spaces such as asylum hotels, or to accompany someone to intense appointments, or to challenge systems of injustice where we see them – we aim to lean on God for the courage needed in each situation, and not shy away from difficulty. 
• Prayer: This underpins absolutely everything we do. We commit to pray for each of the asylum seekers and refugees we work with, and to encourage others in our churches and communities to pray for them too in ways that are appropriate. We pray over the decisions we make and the people we work alongside. The volunteers pray together regularly and are strongly encouraged to have prayer-support structures in place around themselves too, because of the intense nature of the work. Our oversight group pray together for the work and regularly pray for situations that arise. And, of course, we always offer to pray with the people we support, and this is a regular talking-point as people often become curious about how Christians pray, and start to notice unexpected answers to prayer along the way.