care workers

Reducing gender inequalities to create a sustainable care system (Summary report)

Four in five paid carers are women, because of gender norms and also the gender pay gap which makes it more costly for men to reduce employment hours. However, as more women move into other employment, the sector is struggling to recruit and retain staff. Susan Himmelweit from the Open University and Hilary Land from the University of Bristol examine what can be done to attract enough carers to meet society's increasing care needs.

Practice guide 5: Implementing the Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004

The purpose of this guide is to offer quick and easy access to information that will aid the implementation of the 2004 Act alongside previous related legislation. The guide explores a number of areas and you will see these listed on the left hand menu. For each topic area the guide includes: key research and policy findings; ideas from practice; links to further information. It also includes related areas of practice not specific to the Act that are useful to its implementation.

Resource Guide No 2: Involving service users and carers in social work education

This guide focuses on how service users, carers and providers of social work education and training can work together on the degree programmes. It covers the principles, practicalities and range of approaches to building and sustaining these partnerships. The key messages of the guide apply also to developing service users’ and carers’ involvement in all types of training for social work and social care staff and in the design and delivery of services.

SCIE Position paper 3: Has service user participation made a difference to social care services?

The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) wants to bring together a lot of knowledge about social care, so that information on what works best is available to everyone. This Position paper is about how social care services can be made better by the people who use them - that is, the service users themselves. It brings together the main findings from six reviews that looked at whether service user participation made a difference to changing and improving social care services.

Personalisation briefing for home care providers

This briefing provides guidance for home care providers on how to meet the challenges posed by the personalisation agenda. It provides details of both opportunities and risks, and also highlights how personalisation will impact on organisations very differently, depending on their size, and whether they have relied on large-scale council contracts or on more self-funded customers. Short examples from practice are also included.