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Gemma Wibberley

Thesis Working Title

Revealing the terms and conditions of being a domiciliary carer

Research Interests

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

If you are a home help/ domiciliary care and you would like to share your experiences with me, please email g.wibberley@lancaster.ac.uk.

All information that you tell me will be kept confidential, and I will not use your real name or identification in any publications. If you have any questions about my study, I will be glad to answer them.

Information about the study

I'm a PhD student at Lancaster University and I am looking at domiciliary care for the elderly, and am particularly interested in the experience of the workers who provide this care in people's homes, such as Home Helps and Domiciliary carers.

I personally know people who work in childcare and I know that they enjoy their jobs but that it can be very hard work, for not a lot of money. I'm interested to see if eldercare workers feel similarly and how their experiences differ from childcare workers. I believe that in comparison to childcare, there has not been much research into eldercare workers, especially those who provide care in people's homes. Therefore I believe it is really important to discuss the issues that domiciliary carers face.

My research will therefore focus on 'What are the terms and conditions of being a domiciliary carer?'. I believe that domiciliary carers are generally undervalued and that the very hard work that they do is not always recognised, and this has been reinforced by my initial fieldwork. I'm hoping to speak to a lot more carers and reveal a bit more about their side of the story. My key research questions are as follows:

• What are the terms and conditions of being a domiciliary carer?
• Do these terms and conditions vary depending on the type of employer?
• Are industry terms and conditions changing? If so in what direction?
• What influences the terms and conditions of domiciliary care?
• Can the terms and conditions be improved realistically in the current political climate of outsourcing domiciliary care and cutting costs of domiciliary care?

I believe this topic is an important subject due to the vital nature of the occupation, the current undervaluation of these workers, the predicted growth in this occupation due to the predicted growth in the number of elderly people and the predicted decline in state and family support. The issue of our ageing population has been widely discussed, but the implications that this will have in terms of domiciliary carers has not appeared to be the focus. I believe that to improve the quantity and quality of eldercare, the terms and conditions for domiciliary carers must also be improved.

Although I am currently focusing on home helps' experiences of eldercare, I am also very interested in hearing from anyone involved in domiciliary care for the elderly, whether you receive it, pay for it, provide it, design it, fund it or research it? Please contact me on g.wibberley@lancaster.ac.uk.

All information that you tell me will be kept confidential, and I will not use your real name or identification in any publications. If you have any questions about my study, I will be glad to answer them.

please come and join us in our conference on care work, 19th and 20th July 2010, Lancaster University, see our website for further details

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/centres/gws/event/3148/

Keywords: Domiciliary care, Domiciliary carers, Elder care, Employment

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