negotiating gender and sexuality in frontline migrant support services
This is a collaboration between myself and Aine Bennett. Aine is a teaching fellow at the University of Warwick, where she researches sexuality in asylum. We met during our PhDs and ran a couple of workshops in 2024 with frontline migration support services about how they could better respond to issues of gender and sexuality in their work, in collaboration with Migrants’ Rights Network. This led to the creation of a training workbook for migration support services to guide conversations about gender and sexuality in their organisations, which has been distributed to more than 20 organisations nationally.
Through this first phase of the project, we identified that many of the tensions surrounding gender and sexuality are shared across frontline migration services. These include navigating different understandings and experiences of gender and sexuality, balancing the needs and perspectives of service users, volunteers and staff, and responding to complex situations with care and confidence.
We have recently received some funding from the University of Warwick to build on this work and bring practitioners together to share experiences, identify common challenges, and co-produce practical responses. We also want to expand this beyond the London-focus of the previous project and build a network across London and the Midlands.
Between autumn 2026 and spring 2027 we are running a new series of workshops with frontline migrant support services in London and the Midlands to:
- identify where gender and sexuality shape migrant support work, including key challenges and opportunities;
- co-design potential service responses with a network of peers;
- reflect on and iterate these responses through a peer support network developed during the workshops.
By bringing organisations together, we hope to develop practical approaches, shared resources, and an ongoing community of practice that supports everyone involved.
