Lead supervisor:
Prof Jonathan Scourfield 
Start date: October 2014
Award: General
Subject Pathway:
Social Care, Social Work and Social Policy
Thematic Cluster:
Society and Well-Being Cluster
Investigating The Experiences of Informal Carers Within the Process of Long-Term Care Admissions: Implications for Social Work Practice
Whilst the primary responsibility for choosing and organising long term care placements most frequently falls to informal carers; the experiences of this group are relatively under-researched in comparison to studies focussed upon older people as they transition into care home settings.
This study will aim to:
- Contribute to existing understandings of the experiences of family care-givers as they facilitate care home admission for older people
- Explore the nature of support specifically required in facilitating the effective adjustment of family care-givers to long-term placement.
- Consider the extent to which current social policy related to care home admissions and existing social work practice during placement reflects the concerns of informal care-givers and builds upon their need for specific types of support
- In light of the above: to consider some of the actions that may be required (from both a policy and practice perspective), to enable practitioners to deliver interventions most suited to the needs of informal care-givers at a time of placement and therefore most likely to promote effective placement adjustment.