Social Policy contexts in modern archives (PhD Placement)

Social Policy contexts in modern archives (PhD Placement)

The purpose of this placement is to improve an understanding of our social sciences resources within the wider academic community and will be hosted by the Research Services department at The British Library. Social policy content at the Library is accessible both onsite and online and represents an often overlooked and undervalued resource with significant research potential. However, it is frequently not well documented and will remain hidden without greater visibility and promotion across the wider research community. Social work researchers are able to explore a number of themes relevant to their profession through the Library’s historical collections, theoretical papers, online collections, and newly acquired E-resources. Policy areas of interest include crime, education, migration, population, social disadvantage, inequalities and social security. Researching these areas requires and interdisciplinary approach which may encompass housing and urban studies, history, law, public policy, psychology and social anthropology. This placement will research an area of social policy that has influenced social work or an emerging/existing theme within the profession. Funder(s): ESRC Midlands Graduate School DTP.
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    Item type:Policy report,
    CARING ABOUT CARE WORKERS AFTER COVID-19: Ensuring the mental health of care workers in a post-pandemic context
    (2024-05-22)
    Leung, Gah-Kai
    The COVID-19 pandemic has left a lasting and indelible impact on society. Care workers in particular may be an under-served and under-represented group in post-pandemic policy. This report focuses on the mental health needs facing the social care workforce as we return to ‘normality’ after COVID-19. In short, a comprehensive review of mental health policy is needed to address the specific needs of this group of people. ‘Tentpole’ legislation tends to emphasize care patients rather than care workers; as a result, the latter population is shifted out of the picture. Policy is further complicated by the devolved nature of healthcare in the UK. COVID-19 has led to a wide variety of issues, from the impacts of restrictions to challenges with obtaining personal protective equipment (PPE) and workers’ own fears about spreading the disease. These have arguably exacerbated existing structural problems within the social care sector, such as care workers’ ongoing economic precarity, problems with recruitment and retention, underappreciation from wider society and under-representation in health governance and decision-making. This report makes the following policy recommendations: (1) Promote the economic security of care workers. (2) Reverse decades of underinvestment in the care sector. (3) Provide incentives for immigrants wishing to enter the care sector. (4) Create dedicated mental health services for care workers. (5) Declare 26 March a National Care Workers’ Appreciation Day. (6) Establish a care workers’ assembly. This report suggests that we need a wholesale rethink of our approach to both mental health provision and social care provision in the UK. But while the pandemic has thrown up numerous challenges, it also represents a significant window of opportunity: to learn the lessons from what went wrong before and to put in place the necessary steps to create a much more resilient, equitable, joined-up and responsive social care system that delivers improved outcomes for all
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