Lisa Nandy has been Policy Advisor at the Children’s Society since 2005. She is responsible for leading The Childrens Societys national efforts to influence change in laws, policies and practices affecting child refugees, children in care, children living in absolute poverty and children who have been trafficked to the UK.

Lisa currently chairs the Refugee Children’s Consortium, a coalition of 30 leading charities working on behalf of refugee children. Lisa spearheaded lobbying to outlaw Section 9 legislation which rendered families destitute by withdrawing all state support and carried the threat of taking their children into state care. Together with NGO colleagues Lisa recently persuaded government ministers to adhere to national childrens standards regarding the safe treatment of all children.

Lisa has published several reports on the situation of children, including Going It Alone , a 2007 study of children newly arrived in the UK, and in 2008, Living on the Edge of Despair documenting absolute poverty in families. She is an advisor to the Childrens Commissioner for England, and has represented The Childrens Society on various Government advisory committees.

Before joining The Children’s Society, Lisa was a Policy and Research Officer from 2003-2005 at Centrepoint, a youth homelessness charity working to improve the lives of socially excluded young people by providing accommodation and support programmes. During this time, Lisa worked on an initiative that eventually banned the use of poor quality hostels as housing accommodation for 16 and 17-year-olds. She also authored the report Unfit Housing for Young People which revealed for the first time the impact of poor quality housing on vulnerable young people.

Lisa grew up in the North West of England, and graduated in 2001 from Newcastle University with a degree in politics. Following graduation, she launched her career with Neil Gerrard MP, successfully passing new legislation to outlaw discrimination against disabled people. Lisa was responsible for helping to coordinate a cross-party group of MPs and peers, and researching new government proposals to improve housing and homelessness policy. She later earned a masters degree in public policy from the University of London.

In her free time, Lisa serves a school governor for Brackenbury Primary School in West London. She also enjoys travelling.