Frances Trevena is a barrister and the supervising lawyer for the Refugee Law Clinic. Her expertise is in migration and asylum, with a particular focus on violence against women and children. She has worked at Rights of Women, and established an advice centre and strategic litigation hub at the Eaves Poppy Project. She worked at Coram Children’s Legal Centre giving legal advice and working on policy relating to migrant children. Frances has also worked advising government on policing and violence against women amongst other topics.
Frances co-authored the Coram Children’s Legal Centre publications Seeking Support (2017) and Securing permanent status: existing legal routes for children and young people without leave to remain in the UK, and the policy paper This is my home (both 2017) she also wrote the UK chapter in PICUM’s Manual on regularisations for children, young people and families (2018). She was part of the co-ordination group for the Children’s Brexit Coalition, and helped put together the paper Making Brexit Work for Children (2017), and contributed to the children’s rights section in the Liberty publication Bringing human rights home? (2018).
Frances has an LLM in Law and Gender from SOAS (2015). She was a Clore 2018-19 Emerging Social Leadership Fellow and has volunteered on legal advice projects in the UK and in Greece. Frances is a trustee of IRMO, a community-led advice organisation supporting the Latin American community.