“They’re Not Thinking on the Same Side We Are”: Street-Level Activation of Parents under Universal Credit

I’ll begin by saying that there is a lack of clarity about what exactly is going to happen or when it’s going to happen. You hear the news, and see social media posts, but there is no real communication about what’s going on. And when you’re anxious, when you’re on the edge, you feel like every single thing that isn’t in your plan or that takes you by surprise is harder to deal with - because it builds upon the anxiousness you already have and the trauma you’ve suffered.

This guest blog gives introduces and shares interim findings from a SPICe fellowship by Dr Clementine Hill O’Conner (University of Glasgow) on the role of lived experience within scrutiny at …

Job Purpose To make a leading contribution to the Changing Realities and Safety Nets project working with Professor Ruth Patrick and colleagues across several institutions. The successful candidat...

This project will explore the extent of the devolution of social security within the UK and the realities, risks, and opportunities this poses for families with dependent children.

Residents in state-funded private facilities more likely to receive below standard treatment, according to Oxford University study

The latest Household Below Average Income (HBAI) statistics show that poverty continues to affect millions of children in the UK, with 4.5 million affected by poverty during 2023-2024, an increase of 100,00 on the year before. These figures should shame us all, and must be examined alongside the UK Government’s proposals to take £4.8 billion in social security support from some of the most vulnerable, and indeed poorest, among us. The Government’s own Impact Assessment suggests that 50,000 more children will be pulled into relative poverty as a direct result of these changes. But another way is possible. For the past five years, almost 200 parents and carers living on a low-income from all four nations of the UK have been working alongside researchers at the University of York and Child Poverty Action Group to document everyday life in poverty and to push for change. The project started life as Covid Realities in the pandemic and became Changing Realities in a cost-of-living crisis that has never gone away. In our work together, we have contributed real-time evidence to policymakers, challenged harmful media narratives, and developed co-produced recommendations for change.

Greater conceptual and empirical engagement with welfare state complexity is needed in studies of digital welfare. This article explores how existing concepts such as welfare systems, subsidiarisatio...

Dr Annie Irvine on why we need for a much more holistic approach to understanding capacity in order to tackle mental health-related inactivity.

Care Full is launching! Sign up here We’re excited to launch Care Full with an evening to inspire new ideas and action towards a more caring economy. Join us to hear about Care Full’s a…

This article brings a youth lens to the study of care by empirically examining the accounts of young adults who pursue paid adult social care employment. The youth lens includes drawing on youth st...

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One key rationale behind the design of Universal Credit is administrative simplicity. But that apparent simplicity ends up concealing the complexity of people’s different lives and circumstan…