Philip Thorpe

"This independent research from MVC has strengthened our understanding of the needs of refugees and asylum seekers and provided a valuable evidence base to inform service delivery."
Carys Alty, Head of Migration & Partnerships, Oxfordshire County Council

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If you are interested to hear more about MVC or would like our support with your own project or operation, please let us know.

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A system not fit for purposeAcross Britain, practitioners, local authorities, and community organisations are working within an asylum system that has not kept pace with the scale or complexity of contemporary displacement. Years of shifting legislation, inconsistent operational capacity, and short term decision making have created a landscape where delays are normal, support is fragmented, and people are left in prolonged uncertainty.Practitioners describe a system that often feels chaotic. Long waiting times, sudden policy changes, limited access to legal advice, and overstretched accommodation providers shape the daily realities of those seeking sanctuary. These pressures also affect the people supporting them, contributing to burnout, moral distress, and organisational strain.Cradling Hope examines how these structural pressures are experienced on the ground. It looks at how practitioners navigate the gaps, how displaced people cope with prolonged instability, and how local networks attempt to create continuity and care within an environment that frequently undermines both.

Understanding these pressures is essential. Without acknowledging the structural realities that shape people’s lives, it is impossible to build humane, effective, and sustainable approaches to sanctuary. This research aims to illuminate these realities not to assign blame but to support more grounded, evidence based conversations about what a functioning system could look like.Why understanding matters nowThe pressures facing the UK asylum system are not abstract. They shape the lives of displaced people, the work of practitioners, and the tone of public debate. At a time of rising global displacement and a system struggling to cope, the need for clear and grounded understanding has never been greater.Yet the national conversation often shows how little is understood about the people who seek protection and the purpose of the asylum system itself. Public language, from political speeches to protest slogans, frequently reduces complex human realities to simple claims that do not reflect the truth. People are spoken about as threats, burdens, or statistics rather than as individuals rebuilding their lives in difficult circumstances. The system is described in ways that bear little resemblance to how it actually functions on the ground.This gap between perception and reality has consequences. It fuels hostility, shapes policy decisions, and undermines the possibility of humane and effective responses to displacement. It also places additional strain on practitioners and communities who work every day to support people through a system that is already under immense pressure.Cradling Hope responds to this moment. By bringing together practitioner insight, lived experience, and creative expression, it aims to deepen public understanding of who seeks sanctuary in Britain, why they come, and what the asylum system is meant to do. It seeks to replace noise with clarity and assumption with evidence so that conversations about displacement can be rooted in truth rather than fear.

Artistic expression and meaning makingCreative expression is a vital part of how many displaced people make sense of their experiences. Through art, writing, music, and other forms of creativity, people rebuild identity, process trauma, and hold on to a sense of self during long periods of uncertainty.Practitioners see this every day. They witness how creativity opens conversations that would otherwise remain hidden and reveals truths that case files and statistics cannot capture. But also how art and expression speak accross culture and language barriers and the power they have to change perceptions.Cradling Hope places this creative work at the centre of its inquiry. It treats artistic expression as a source of knowledge about displacement, resilience, and belonging, and brings it into dialogue with practitioner insight and lived experience to show a fuller, more human picture of sanctuary in Britain.

Syed Mostafa Seyyed Naser al-Dini, Untitled, 2018

Funding and how to support the project

Cradling Hope is partly self funded, but external support is essential to ensure the work is sustainable, ethically grounded, and able to meet the needs of participants and partners. The project requires £16,000 in total to complete, and supporters are welcome to contribute at any level. Every contribution directly supports research activity, fieldwork, travel, participant support, creative outputs and events, and the time needed to carry out the work with care and integrity.Funds can be held securely in an Oxford Brookes University account and managed through standard university financial controls. This provides a safe and transparent way to contribute, with a clear audit trail for all expenditure. This structure ensures that support for the research is practical, accountable, and aligned with the values of the study. It allows partners to invest in work that is grounded, humane, and focused on real improvement in the asylum and protection system - to cradle hope.

What Supporters Receive

This approach creates a collaborative funding coalition of organisations and individuals who want to support practitioner led and evidence based work on sanctuary and protection in contemporary Britain. It offers a shared space for learning, reflection, and co creation, shaped by the insight of practitioners and communities. All contributions help build a clearer and more human understanding of how sanctuary is created and experienced in the UK.In return supporters receive:

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