MPS is working with migrants who work on migration issues across Scotland. Our Migrant Lived Experience Panel is at the core of our community of practice and plays a central role in our work. Together we are developing a new approach to policy research and influencing that integrates migrants’ lived experience, going beyond a standard representative approach. To date we have developed a peer research model capable of delivering rich and relevant data speedily. We used this powerful research mechanism to inform the design of the Scottish Government’s online Scotland’s Migration Service, ensuring that it is better suited to meet migrant users’ needs. Our current project on Financial Disadvantage among Migrant Households is co-produced and co-delivered in partnership with several LEx panel members. Together we are exploring solutions to the impacts of the cost of living crisis on migrant households. We have established a process for co-design of future work and plan to develop a suite of projects to support place-based integration.
‘Migration Policy Scotland’s research has really helped us as we design and develop the Talent Attraction and Migration Service [now called Scotland’s Migration Service]. It’s essential that we listen to users’ voices as we develop the service. MPS approach to integrating lived experience brought invaluable insights to our work.’ Colin Carroll, Scottish Government
Our Migrant LEx Panel is gender-balanced and weighted to ensure a diversity of migrants by reason for migration, ethnicity and region of orgin. Members of the group work in roles spanning legal casework, community development, advice and support and tech. They offer MPS not only the insight of their own experiences as migrants, but also a more immediate understanding of the experiences of their migrant clients and services users. Our co-produced projects work in partnership with their home organisations where possible.
We value the lived and learned experience of our panel members highly. They contribute to our project advisory groups and take up roles within MPS governance. Through these ways of working together, sharing skills, insight and expertise we are building wider capacity on migration policy in Scotland, alive to the challenges migrants face and committed to building a better, more compassionate migration future for all.
Our members are: Angie Mwafulirwa, Ferial Puren, James Verardi, Jamila Hassan, Joanna Peters, Kamal Ibrahim, Naeem Rehman, Reza Karimi and Shaina Gabi – who represents the Panel within MPS governance.
Shaina says: ‘What MPS has created with the LEx panel is new and exciting; it is not simply a forum. By co-creating with migrants who have both lived and learned experience, MPS provides a unique perspective where research is grounded in the nuanced realities of migration.
In 2023, our peer research had a direct impact on the tender and service design of the new Scottish Migration Service. I think what we did was incredible, demonstrating a genuine influence on policy and practice. I’m very proud that our research can be linked to the experience future migrants will have. The panel members are extremely knowledgeable in their fields, and I have been honoured to represent them this year’
