Jon Beech

Jon Beech
Leeds

I’m Director of Leeds Asylum Seekers’ Support Network, Chair of Solidaritech CIC and Mafwa Theatre CIC, and I help out with communications and strategy for the Leeds Migration Partnership.

My background is in mental health, community development and homelessness. For around 20 years, I’ve worked alongside refugees and other racialised communities, usually in contexts shaped by inequality, displacement and unhelpful public policy — and in the gap between how systems are designed and how people survive them.

Before joining LASSN, I managed community, advocacy and therapeutic services at Touchstone, and worked alongside people experiencing homelessness, addiction, and mental distress at Shelter, Mind and within local government.

I’m at my best when I’m helping people work out how to sort things out for themselves — collectively where possible — and how to increase their power and resources by sharing them.

Much of my work sits at the intersection of lived experience, services and the state, with a particular interest in how people navigate, resist and reshape systems that harm as much as they help.

Tea: strong, with a splash of milk if there’s any around.