Strategic Legal Fund

for Refugee Children and Young People

Team

Sue Lukes

Sue Lukes, MigrationWork CIC

Sue Lukes directs the Strategic Legal Fund for Refugee Children and Young People, and leads on the action learning element. A director of MigrationWork CIC, she has been working with refugees and migrants since 1974. She is a specialist in housing and immigration law, editing a website (www.housing-rights.info), writing articles for advice and legal press and training advisers, lawyers, housing staff and others, drawing on her experience of running a housing aid and legal service for SHAC and Shelter in London. She has managed a legal service, worked with legal advisers on development and researched many related areas for organisations such as the Legal Services Commission, the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, Refugee Action, and Asylum Aid. She has also evaluated many projects and published several research reports. She is on the board of a housing association and a small fund offering development money for refugee projects, and has advised two major funders on developing work on migration. She chairs Music in Detention which she helped found. Her interest in the rights of child refugees dates from an early age: her father arrived on the Kindertransport in 1939.

Frances Smith

Frances Smith, MigrationWork CIC

Frances Smith is an associate with MigrationWork CIC and manages the Strategic Legal Fund for Refugee Children and Young People. Her background in the refugee and legal sector was initially as a legal representative working for Refugee Legal Centre. She has worked for Refugee Housing Association in a community liaison role and for the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner where she was Policy Manager. Fran wrote the Mayor of London’s report on legal advice for asylum seekers, and as a consultant she has evaluated Home Office funding for refugee projects and the Refugee Children’s Panel. She has experience of setting up projects, and was involved in setting up the Independent Asylum Commission and the NRPF Network. She has worked in organisational development, for example at AdviceUK where she supported advice organisations and BAN (the Black and ethnic minority Advice Network).