Right to Remain updates its online Toolkit guide to the asylum and immigration system

Right to Remain, which is a charity working with communities to help people establish their right to remain in the UK, has this month published a new and updated version of its online Toolkit.

The Right to Remain Toolkit is a structured, user-friendly, step-by-step guide to the UK asylum and immigration system. It is available in print and online. You can access the newly updated online Toolkit here.

The update of the Toolkit was shaped and informed by the views of users obtained via surveys, workshops and interviews.

As work began on the update last year, Right to Remain explained: "We had a pop-up survey on the Toolkit website for a few months and got loads of great responses … We heard about the different ways that people are using the Toolkit. Some people use it help train volunteers, others use it to explain to clients where they are in the legal process, what might come next and how they can prepare, some people use it to educate themselves."

Right to Remain added: "Part of our research into the 'digital behaviour' of Toolkit users and potential users was conducting either one-on-one interviews or focus group sessions … The point of this was that after hearing how people use the internet for information-gathering, we can adapt the online Toolkit to better match these digital habits, so that we can more effectively help people to understand their legal situation and have access to justice."

While Right to Remain noted that quite a lot of the online Toolkit content has stayed the same, as survey results showed it was doing the job well, a number of significant changes have been made by the update. These include the following:

• A simpler home page, which introduces the Toolkit with pictures and a few words.

• An updated, fresher design with new diagrams throughout.

• Content has been updated to the current rules, laws and policies. Right to Remain says it will continue doing this on a very regular basis.

• Clearer language so that the Toolkit speaks more directly to people who are navigating the process.

• Some of the language has changed so that each page and its information can better stand alone, rather than assuming that people see the guide as an overarching resource.

• Improved flow and structure of several pages.

• Pages have been renamed so that they are clearer to people looking at Google search results.

• Some new pages have been added and some pages that had previously been collected together have been separated out. For example, there is now a new page on Asylum: appeal rights exhausted.

• The Toolkit has a new videos page.

In addition, every page of the online Toolkit has a Google Translate bar at the top to enable easy translation of the English information on the page.