Lucy Leon

Lucy Leon is a Researcher at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford, working with the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity on a research and knowledge exchange project focussed on the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) immigration condition and social services provision for those at risk of destitution. Her research interests include migration, poverty, inequality, sociology of childhood, children’s rights, participatory methodologies and co-production. Lucy has been working in the migration and children’s sector since 2003 in a variety of roles including as a researcher, frontline practitioner, service manager and policy adviser. Her background is in frontline practice with migrant children, young people and families and she set up and managed the award-winning Rise project, a specialist service for migrant boys and young men who had been trafficked into the UK. Prior to joining COMPAS, she worked at UCL on the Children Caring on the Move research project with a team of peer researchers using participatory methods to explore separated children and young people’s experiences of care. She also worked as policy and practice adviser for migrant children and families at The Children’s Society, leading the organisation’s policy and research work on immigration issues. Lucy has a BA in Anthropology and Geography and a MA in the Sociology of Childhood and Children’s Rights from UCL, where she focussed on migrant children and young people’s rights in the UK.