Summary:
Suffolk County Council’s Covid Response team was created to manage the Covid-19 Pandemic. The team consisted of a range of skills, from various sectors across the Council and partner organisations and included some new posts to enable the Council to respond to the impact of the virus.
Within the Covid Response team, there was a branch of Community Engagement Officers who played a pivotal part in many aspects of Covid management.
In response to varying levels of vaccination uptake the community engagement officers wanted to target specific, vulnerable communities within their County to increase uptake. In their County Town of Ipswich there is a known refugee community. The Community Engagement Officers knew of the work carried out by a well established charity, Suffolk Refugee Support (see below), and saw an opportunity to collaborate in efforts to encourage, reassure, support and (in partnership with the CCG) deliver vaccinations to this group.