CARE MATTERS podcast
The CARE MATTERS podcast is brought to you by the ESRC Centre for Care and CIRCLE, the Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities.
In this series, our researchers welcome experts in the field and those giving or receiving care to discuss crucial issues in social care, as we collectively attempt to make a positive difference to how care is experienced and provided.
Episodes
Episode fourteen - Care poverty: in conversation with Professor Teppo Kröger
5 October 2022
Episode ten - Social prescribing: Improving people’s wellbeing by connecting them with their communities
18 August 2021
CARE MATTERS podcast producer Dan Williamson interviews Tim Anfilogoff to find out more about social prescribing. They explore the current role it plays in social care in England, the development and roll out of social prescribing and some challenges facing it and the people that use it.
Tim is Head of Community Resilience for the two Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Groups, and NHS England’s Social Prescribing Regional Facilitator for the East of England. Tim is also a member of the Sustainable Care programme’s Advisory Board.
Read 'Caring as a social determinant of health' (PDF, 1.5MB)
Public Health England publication
Episode nine - ‘Gig economy’ care platform models: Impacts for the workforce and the market
17 February 2021
UKRI Innovation Fellow, Dr Karla Zimpel-Leal (University of Sheffield) welcomes Dr Fiona Macdonald (RMIT University) to talk about her research on care platform models, or uberisation, and her latest publication at the International Journal of Care and Caring titled ‘Personalised risk’ in paid care work and the impacts of ‘gig economy’ care platforms. Both draw on their research in the UK and in Australia to highlight careworkers’ experiences of working within these models, and the impact of these models on the care market.
Dr Fiona MacDonald is a Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow in the School of Management at RMIT. Her research focuses on three interconnected themes: the changing nature of work and employment relationships, regulating for decent work and gender equality, and the political economy of work. Fiona’s current research is on the social care workforce, social policy and welfare systems.
Episode eight - Long-term care services in the EU: issues of access and quality
4 February 2021
Sustainable Care Programme Manager, Dr Kelly Davidge, and former Head of Social Policies Unit at Eurofound, Rob Anderson recorded this episode of our Care Matters series on 10 December 2020. Rob explains the characteristics of long-term care services, how they feature in EU policies and programmes, Eurofound’s contribution to research on these services and what issues there are for further research and service development in this area. The pair also discuss the impact of Brexit on long-term care services in the UK and the EU.
Rob Anderson is the former Head of the Social Policies Unit at Eurofound, and worked as Research Manager from 1988-2018 on a range of topics, including the monitoring quality of life and living conditions in the EU, projects on ageing and changes in employment over the life course, measures to promote the social inclusion of people with chronic illness and the creation of employment in care services.
Prior to joining Eurofound, Rob was the Programme Manager at the WHO European Office in Copenhagen, with responsibility for the European Regional Programme in Health Promotion. Rob was also President of Eurocarers from 2009-2013 which gave opportunities to promote links between research and policy at both member state and EU levels. He is Chair of the research and policy committee at Family Carers Ireland and Chair of the Sustainable Care programme advisory board.
Episode seven - Care and caring in Europe: Common challenges, common solutions?
27 January 2021
We were delighted to be joined by Eurocarers’ Executive Director, Stecy Yghemonos for episode seven of our Care Matters podcast series, recorded in December 2020. Sustainable Care Co-Investigator, Dr Kate Hamblin hosts this episode and the two discuss very important issues in adult social care in both an EU and UK context.
Topics include the impact of Brexit on social care in the UK, the role of the EU in policy dialogues relating to unpaid care and links between the social and economic dimensions of care, and whether informal care and formal care should be seen as interlinked or completely separate ways of caring. Stecy and Kate also discuss the impact of COVID-19 on social care.
Stecy Yghemonos is the Executive Director of Eurocarers, the European association working for carers. A trained journalist, Stecy is an EU policy and communication specialist. Over the last 17 years he has acted as a Project, Advocacy and Communications Director in organisations promoting and defending the reinforcement and harmonisation of domestic and foreign EU policies in the fields of press freedom, social justice, children’s rights, development, health, education and vocational training.
Together with the Eurocarers Steering Committee he sets the direction of the Eurocarers network, develops and oversees the implementation of the action plan.
Episode six - Sustainable Care programme Early Career Network
20 January 2021
Obert Tawodzera, Camille Allard, Wing Yee Lam (University of Sheffield) and Breda Maloney (University College Dublin) discuss the similarities and differences between their research, and how current issues are impacting their research areas.
This episode is split into three parts:
Young carers, working carers and caring at a distance
Technology in care and COVID-19
Cultural and gender aspects of care
Obert’s research is focused on exploring the role of new technologies in mediating long distance aged care relationships between UK based migrants and their overseas family members. The PhD is embedded within the wider work of Care ‘In’ and ‘Out of’ Place in the Sustainable Care programme, which aims to examine migrant experiences of care in and out of place, in order to develop understandings of sustainability and wellbeing.
Camille is also part of the Sustainable Care programme, and her research is on workplace support for employees who are also carers. She has been working with companies that offer different schemes of care leaves and is assessing how it could enhance a carer’s ability to incorporate paid employment. She works with the team researching ‘Combining work and care‘, which looks at under-researched aspects of the support needed to sustain the wellbeing of ‘working carers’.
Wing’s PhD research is about the juggles of informal caregivers managing paid work and eldercare. Wing is also passionate about research topics in work-life balance, employees’ wellbeing, and equity in the workplace. Wing is working as a Research Assistant in two projects: Mental Health Awareness Training and Work-Life Balance in Hong Kong.
Breda is based in the University College Dublin and is researching young carers’ experience of caring whilst attending secondary school, and their perceptions regarding their future careers. Breda is also part of the CAREWELL project which examines how family carers can be best supported to balance work with care.
Episode five - A lived experience of retiring to Spain by Dr Charles Betty
10 November 2020
Most British nationals who retire abroad to destinations like Spain, maintain strong physical, emotional and social ties to the UK. Family living in the UK often play an instrumental role in the provision of care and support for elderly British nationals in Spain, especially when they struggle to access local social services due to language and cultural barriers.
Research undertaken through the Sustainable Care programme has explored the lived experiences of accessing care and support in Spain and found that some retirees choose to return to the UK when they develop care needs, to be close to their families and to access support from the welfare state. Uncertainty created by Brexit has also led some people to worry about their futures in Spain and so are contemplating returning to the UK.
In this episode, Dr Kelly Hall speaks to Dr Charles Betty about his research on the older British community in Spain, which focuses on return migration. Charles, who completed his PhD in 2017, is now 97 years old and has lived in Spain for the last 35 years.
Charles talks about his research on return migration but also reflects on his own experiences of living in Spain, including how he and the British community more broadly have responded to Brexit. He also talks about the important role of British voluntary organisations in the Costa del Sol, including Age Care Association and hospital volunteer interpreter services, both of which he helped establish many decades ago.
Episode four - The potential of technology in adult social care
21 October 2020
In episode four of our CARE MATTERS podcast, James Wright, Kate Hamblin and Matthew Lariviere discuss the key messages to policymakers from their recently released policy brief: The potential of technology in adult social care (PDF, 1.3MB).
Episode three - Waiting for a long-term care revolution
26 August 2020
In episode three of our CARE MATTERS podcast, Sustainable Care Principal Investigator Professor Sue Yeandle is interviewed by PhD student Camille Allard. They discuss the Sustainable Care research programme, Sue’s lasting partnership with Carers UK, the International Journal of Care and Caring, Carers’ experiences of combining work and care around the world, and the issues which the reform of Adult Social Care desperately needs to address.
Episode two - Migrant homecare workers in the UK at a time of policy change
19 August 2020
In episode two of our CARE MATTERS series, Professor Shereen Hussein is interviewed by Dr Karla Zimpel-Leal about her recently published policy brief: Migrant workers in England’s homecare sector (PDF, 932KB).
Episode one - Caring for older British migrants in Spain
12 August 2020
In the first episode of our CARE MATTERS series podcast, Dr Kelly Hall from the University of Birmingham is interviewed by Dr Magdolna Lőrinc from the University of Sheffield about her recently published policy brief: Care for older British migrants in Spain (PDF, 1.8MB).