Refugee and Migrant Centre (RMC) in the West Midlands

The Refugee and Migrant Centre is one of the largest charities of its kind in the UK, providing free, regulated advice and hands-on support to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants across the West Midlands. For people arriving in Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall or the wider Black Country with little more than hope and a need for safety, RMC is often the first place they walk through the door.

Overview of the Refugee and Migrant Centre (RMC)

The Refugee and Migrant Centre supports refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in the West Midlands. RMC has been supporting new arrivals since 1999, when it was originally established as Wolverhampton Asylum Seeker and Refugee Services. Over the past two decades, it has grown from a single office into a multi-site operation with a purpose that extends well beyond immigration casework. The migrant centre RMC now addresses multiple needs including immigration, housing, health, education, and financial support, all under one roof.

RMC operates across Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley. Each city hosts a centre where people can walk in without an appointment during morning hours and speak to a qualified adviser, often in their own language. Over 45 nationalities are supported at RMC, and the organisation sees up to 200 clients each day across its offices. Safe routes for asylum in the UK are very limited, which means many of those clients arrive with complex legal situations and urgent practical needs. RMC operates drop-in services at various centres for immediate assistance, prioritising emergencies and the most vulnerable cases.

Here are the key facts about the Refugee and Migrant Centre at a glance:

Services and Support Offered by RMC

The migrant centre RMC offers holistic support that covers the full journey from initial asylum claim through to long-term integration in the West Midlands. Rather than addressing one problem at a time, RMC's model wraps immigration advice, welfare, health and learning into a single service, so a client who walks in for help with a visa application can also get referred to a GP, access housing advice, or enrol in an English class on the same visit.

Advice and casework

RMC's immigration advisers hold accreditation at IAA (formerly OISC) Levels 1, 2 and 3. They handle asylum claims, family reunion applications, human rights cases and settlement applications. RMC provides regulated advice for EU Settlement Scheme applications, including late applications and appeals for people with complex or vulnerable circumstances. In the year to March 2026, RMC's teams submitted 4,659 regulated immigration applications.

The organisation helps clients secure stable housing and avoid destitution through welfare benefits casework. This includes help accessing Universal Credit, council tax support, and housing benefit. For people facing homelessness, RMC advocates with local councils and makes referrals to emergency accommodation.

A specialist project, the Birmingham NRPF Women's Support Network, launched in August 2022 to support survivors of domestic abuse who have no recourse to public funds. In its first year, 192 survivors received regulated immigration advice, 144 applications were submitted for temporary public funds access, and 90 permanent settlement applications were filed. Language interpretation was provided for 89% of those cases.

Resettlement and integration

Since 2017, RMC has delivered all major UK government resettlement schemes: Syrian, Afghan, and Ukrainian. Specialised projects include Afghan resettlement for individuals at risk because of their service to UK forces, and a dedicated Ukraine support programme. Three and a half years have passed since the war in Ukraine began, and many Ukrainian families in the West Midlands still rely on RMC for housing guidance, school place applications and GP registration. Resettlement schemes are vital for rebuilding lives, and RMC's work in this area goes beyond paperwork; it includes cultural orientation, help preparing for the Life in the UK test, and connecting families with local communities.

RMC offers free expert support for community integration. Practical services include:

• ESOL and learning: RMC offers ESOL English classes to improve communication skills for newcomers, alongside signposting to further education and training opportunities.

• Employment: RMC provides employment support to enhance job readiness and skill development, covering CV writing, interview preparation and vocational training referrals.

• Health and wellbeing: RMC offers health and wellbeing services, including access to healthcare and mental health support. A Wolverhampton project focused on wider determinants of health reached around 3,000 beneficiaries through roughly 4,000 interventions, spanning digital skills, food access and shelter assistance.

This range of services reflects RMC's vision: that individuals and families who arrive in the UK should be able to find a stable home, work, and a place in their local community.

Community, Volunteering and How to Contact RMC

Volunteers are the backbone of RMC's day-to-day operations. Many come from the same communities the charity serves. Over half of RMC's 108 paid staff started as volunteers, and the organisation currently has 132 active volunteers working across its four centres.

How volunteers contribute

Volunteers help RMC see up to 200 clients each day. Volunteering opportunities at RMC include roles from administration to advisor, covering:

• Reception and administration: greeting people at the door, managing paperwork, updating case files in busy offices.

• Language interpreting: RMC's multilingual volunteers cover dozens of languages, including Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Polish, Romanian, Tigrinya and Urdu. This is often the difference between a client understanding their legal options and leaving confused.

• Supervised advice work: experienced volunteers assist caseworkers during drop-in sessions, helping individuals navigate forms, gather documents and prepare for appointments.

Volunteers at RMC can receive 1:1 mentoring from staff, alongside structured training, shadowing and ongoing support. Some progress into paid caseworker roles; job listings for positions like "Caseworker Level 1 & 2" illustrate the internal pathway from volunteer to qualified adviser.

People behind the work

To give a sense of what volunteering at RMC looks like in practice: a Ukrainian woman who arrived in the West Midlands in 2022, speaking little English, first came to RMC as a client needing housing support. Within a year, she was volunteering at the Wolverhampton centre, helping new Ukrainian arrivals navigate local services and translate documents. Her story is not unusual; RMC's workforce is built on people whose own journey through the immigration system gives them a direct understanding of what clients face each day.

Another long-term volunteer in Birmingham has spent several years helping families with school place applications and GP registrations, drawing on her own experience of reading through unfamiliar bureaucratic processes after arriving in the UK. These are the kinds of contributions that keep the centres running and keep the focus on the people who walk through the door.

How to get involved

If you want to volunteer, visit the RMC website and click through to the volunteering page. The process involves submitting an application form, attending an induction session at one of the West Midlands offices, and completing a period of shadowing before taking on a role.

Contact information

For anyone who needs support or wants more information:

• Helpline: 0800 0663 444 (free; for general enquiries and updates on existing cases, not legal advice)

• Birmingham Centre: Second Floor, Chamberlain Building, 36 Frederick Street, B1 3HN

• Wolverhampton Centre: Ground Floor, Derwent House, 42-46 Waterloo Road, WV1 4XB

• Walsall Centre: 41-45 Bridge Street, WS1 1JQ

• Dudley Centre: Trident Shopping Centre, DY1 1QJ

Drop-in hours are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 9am to 1pm at all centres (Dudley is closed on Fridays). Pre-booked appointments are available in the afternoons. Check the RMC centres page for the latest opening times.

Whether you are a refugee looking for hard-to-find legal advice, a migrant trying to continue building a life in a new city, or someone in the West Midlands who wants to give time, skills or a donation, RMC's offices are open. The Refugee and Migrant Centre has spent over 25 years turning an open door into real, measurable change for the people who need it most.