Reasons to be hopeful: a reflection after five years at Justice Together
October 22, 2025
Director of Justice Together Hazel Williams shares five changes in the migration sector that inspire her as she prepares to move on to a new role.
As my time at Justice Together comes to an end, I have been reflecting both on the past five years and further back to when I started working in the migration sector over 20 years ago. While a lot has changed in our sector and in the external context, one thing that remains a constant is the hope that fuels the fight for fairness for people migrating to the UK.
Hopefully avoiding toxic positivity (I’ll let you be the judge!), I have picked out some of the changes I have seen, what I have learnt and reasons to be hopeful for a better future.
1. A recognition of Racial Justice, why it’s so important and (slightly) less fear about speaking out.
When I started working in the migration sector, I remember a refugee charity telling me that I couldn’t call the Home Office racist as it was offensive. This seemed like madness to me. There has been progress: twenty years on, migrant organisations are far more likely to call out government policy as racist and make the connection much more clearly between migrant and racial justice. Over the past five years I have seen organisations really invest in integrating anti-racist practice in their work and repairing harms. Of course, there are plenty of examples of bad practice and there is still so much work to be done across the sector around developing anti-racist organisations. But I’ll take progress in this essential area as a win.
2. Stronger communities in action
One of the most important developments for making change that I’ve seen is the significant growth in community organising in the UK. Labour was in power during my early years in the sector, but with the change in government in 2010 came a change in our ability to influence policy using evidence and traditional lobbying. The subsequent development in community organising is fantastic; change happens in communities by communities, and using this power to influence will have a longer-term impact. This connection and knowledge cannot easily be dismantled by the government or the forces that work against human rights.
3. Never giving up – always challenging – despite the constant change
There is nothing more annoying when yet another change to immigration legislation or policy comes out and a smug colleague remarks, “Well, the one thing constant in the migration sector is that change will always happen” (puke face). But it’s true, the never-ending but ever-worsening new immigration legislation – much of which is never actually implemented – sits on statute looming over us. Despite this, the one thing I always see is an absolute commitment to never giving up and always challenging the government. Fighting the Rwanda policy was a great example of a united sector fighting in multiple different ways.
4. Pooling resources and overcoming conflict
The ability of the sector to work together seems to peak and trough, often depending on external factors such as competition for funding, government policy and hostile environment pressure. All this can create the perfect environment for conflict and competition. Yet over the past five years I have seen more collective partnership working and solutions on how to pool resources, work together and share learning. Organisations have a deeper understanding of how external pressures create internal conflict – and the importance of giving grace and moving through conflict as an opportunity for change. It is this which makes the sector stronger, and gives me hope for the future.
5. Recognising trauma and prioritising wellbeing
Acknowledgement in the sector of vicarious trauma and the impact of our work on staff has grown over the years. When I started as a caseworker we used to have collective debrief sessions – creating spaces to decompress from the stress of advice services isn’t new. But the work seems deeper now, with more organisations providing one-to-one counselling support, and more information and awareness about the impact of delivering advice and the isolation many workers feel. There’s also more recognition of the risk of burnout, and work to try and alleviate that.
I leave inspired both by all the work that people are doing to ensure fairness and dignity for migrants, and by the upswell of support and counter-protests against hateful anti-migrant views. And by knowing that people are coming together to speak out about the country they want to live in, one in which no one should be fearful, because ultimately a fair society will benefit everyone.