While on research leave from RMIT University in Melbourne, Prof Sara Charlesworth has spent time at the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the University of Kent. Her visit was hosted by PSSRU Co-Director, Prof Shereen Hussein, who also hosted a seminar by Sara on emerging findings from her Decent Work Good Care project. Sara’s presentation, entitled ‘Homecare work in Australia & New Zealand: Time autonomy & time to care’, looked at the ways in which the different home care systems in the two countries and the organisation of work at the provider level shape the autonomy workers have over their own working time and the control they have over the time allocated to care for clients. Sara is a member of the Advisory Committee on a new PSSRU project Developing a scale of work-related wellbeing at work for adult social care staff (ASCOT-STAFF): Phase One led by Shereen. While at the PSSRU, Sara also met with Shereen and the research team working on the ASCOT-STAFF project to discuss the progress of the project.

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On the 13th of November 2019, Associate Director Professor Shereen Hussein was invited to attend a closed event with Hillary Rodham Clinton, former US Secretary of State and the first female presidential candidate of a major US political party organised by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership Chair Julia Gillard, former Australian Prime Minister. The discussion between Secretary Clinton and Julia Gillard centred on barriers to women’s leadership, the increasingly toxic culture for women in politics. The event was attended by key academics, women’s activities and politicians, providing a great networking platform.

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Professor Shereen Hussein was invited by the European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disability (EASPD) to provide a keynote speech on the disability workforce in Europe. Professor Hussein drew on several of her research onto this area as well as current research from the PSSRU, including RESSCW ; ASCOT-Staff and Sustainable Care projects. Her talk focused on how the disability workforce should be a dynamic agent for change to achieve autonomy and desired policy outcomes for service users and their carers. She discussed current trends, including characteristics, motivations and retention issues within the workforce as well as potential mechanisms to ensure and enhance the quality of services. The conference was an important opportunity for networking with different European and national agencies and stakeholders. During the conference, Professor Hussein and other delegates were invited by the Helsinki City Mayor to attend a welcome reception at the City Hall as the conference was a part of the Finnish Presidency Programme. Professor Hussein has used this opportunity to meet with Professor Teppo Kröger, Director, and Professor Sirpa Wrede, Group leader, at the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care (CoE AgeCare), University of Jyväskylä. Professor Hussein discussed common research interests and future collaboration opportunities particularly in relation to the care workforce wellbeing and the interplay between migration, care and inequalities.

On the 23rd of September 2019, Professor Shereen Hussein (Associate Director, PSSRU) had her second meeting with the Canadian film maker Helene Klodawsky. Helene has secured some funding to continue her project on making care visible (see some information here). Building on her short film ‘The Invisible Everywhere’, her new project aims to raise awareness among the public of aspects of care that are usually invisible and absent from the public discourse. Through a collaboration with the University of Toronto, Helene aims to bring the voices of those who receive and provide care as well as evidence from research in an accessible and interesting format to the general public. They discussed Professor Hussein’s research and potential contribution in translating research evidence in relation to the invisibility of those providing and receiving care from a multi-faceted perspective that encompasses global, gender and migration aspects among others.

Professor Shereen Hussein convened a symposium for the Transforming Care Conference last month. The symposium draws on her research as part of the Sustainable Care project. The symposium started with an overarching comparative paper by Professor Hussein on the demand and use of migrant workers in the long-term care sector (LTC) in eight OCED countries (Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea and UK) highlighting commonalities and differences. We then present case studies from Norway, Germany and Italy, offering rich and insightful discussions of various countries facing similar challenges of meeting escalating care needs, but who adopt different immigration, welfare and employment policies. From Norway, Karen Christensen examined how macro and meso factors in the UK and Norway influence migrants’ destination and care work choices. Hildegard Theobald investigated how the restructured market-oriented German LTC organisation might be linked to increased stratifications and inequalities among migrant care workers. The last paper was from Mirko Di Rosa who provided detailed analysis of the interplay between the Italian cash-for-care approach, the employment of formal and informal migrant workers and the redistribution of care burden and their competing effects. The discussant at the symposium was professor Ito Peng, University of Toronto, Canada. The full papers of the symposium can be downloaded from the Conference web-page and Professor Hussein’s presentation can be found here.

Associate Director, Professor Shereen Hussein, has presented her work on the mobility of EU qualified social workers to practice within Europe within the context of changing policies and Brexit. Shereen examined the experience of England as a destination and considered the challenges associated with the diversity in social work qualifications across Europe and the culture-sensitive nature of the profession. Using social workers registration records from 2003 to 2017; survey of 97 European stakeholders and focus group discussions with 80 participants, she reflects on the complexity in constructing social work training that is transferable to national and international contexts. The full presentation can be found here, and a related article here.