The Care Rights Project was started in 2021 by Abi Brunswick, Amy Murtagh, Olivia Halse, Roopa Tanna and Rachel Balabanoff
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Abi Brunswick - Trustee
Abi Brunswick is the Director and one of the founders of Project 17, an organisation working to reduce destitution among families with no recourse to public funds. She is also a trustee of The Unity Project and has worked in the migrants rights sector since 2008.
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Amy Murtagh - Trustee
Amy has over 15 years' experience of working in the voluntary sector. She has worked with a range of vulnerable groups including migrants, homeless people and women experiencing gender-based violence and harmful practices. She has extensive experience of delivering frontline advice, as well as legal work, delivering training, fundraising, and managing and leading organisations.
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Olivia Halse - Trustee
Olivia works as an Associate Solicitor at the human rights firm Gold Jennings. She specialises in community care and public law with an emphasis on migrant rights. She has a varied experience in bringing individual and policy challenges aimed at securing the rights of migrants against various government bodies including local authorities, the Home Office, NHS Trusts and the Department of Health and Social Care. She regularly represents clients in cases involving failures of local authorities to provide suitable support and accommodation to migrant families under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and to migrant adults with care needs under the Care Act 2014. She draws on her experience representing migrants with care needs and other vulnerabilities to assist in furthering the aims of The Care Rights Project.
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Roopa Tanna - Trustee
Roopa Tanna has been practising immigration and asylum law since 1995, and has worked at Islington Law Centre since 2011 as a supervising solicitor. Roopa has a wide caseload covering complex asylum, immigration and judicial review cases. A high proportion of her cases include acting for clients who have significant vulnerabilities . Over the last few years Roopa has been heavily involved in High Court challenges against the legal aid cuts following the enactment of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 and legal challenges creating safe legal routes to the UK for children in the Calais refugee camps. Roopa has also been involved in more recent litigation challenging the 10 year route to settlement specifically in relation to applicants, who seek to assert their rights under article 8 ECHR and who came to the UK as children. Roopa also works closely with Hackney Migrant Centre and Haringey Migrant Support Centre providing regular outreach advice to their visitors.
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Rachel Balabanoff - Coordinator
Rachel has worked in the advice sector since 2010, primarily with Local Citizens Advice offices in Hillingdon and Buckinghamshire where she held a number of roles, including responsibility for training and quality of advice.