Convenors: Jayanthi Lingham Centre for Care, University of Sheffield
and Chloe Alexander Centre for Care, University of Birmingham

This symposium will develop and provoke enquiries on care convoys. Existing literature defines a care convoy as “the evolving collection of individuals who may or may not have close personal connections to the recipient or to one another, but who provide care… including help with daily living and instrumental activities of daily living, socio-emotional care, skilled health care, monitoring, and advocacy” (Kemp et al 2013: 18). This extends Kahn and Antonucci’s (1980) ‘convoy models of social relations’, which posits that individuals are embedded in dynamic networks of close personal relationships (convoys) that serve as “vehicles through which social support is distributed or exchanged” (Antonucci 1985: 96). The approach understands care as relational, recognises care recipients as active agents within their own care and support and reflects the complex and dynamic nature through the life course of both care needs and networks. In addition to the temporal dimension, social, political and economic contexts – such as shifting gender roles and welfare state retrenchment – can also transform the structure of care convoys. Against this backdrop, there is much scope to further develop the framework. This symposium brings scholars together to do so, in the context of transitions wrought by contemporary shifts in boundaries and enduring global crises. The contributing papers will provoke both broad and specific conversations. How do we apply and extend the care convoys model? How to constructively problematise the framework and address gaps in empirical research? What role do digital technologies play in shaping care convoys? What are the policy implications of understanding care relations and change through the care convoys framework? The discussant(s) will offer insights on the care convoys model and its relevance for how we understand practices of care. Together, these papers and the discussion will situate the care convoys model in the context of urgent debates about the sustainability of, equity within, and possibilities for care.

Paper 1: Changes in care networks due to the COVID-19 pandemic: application of the care convoys model Authors: Deborah Lambotte, Nico De Witte & Benedicte De Koker (University College Ghent/HOGENT). Symposium presenter: Deborah Lambotte Outline: As the care convoy model indicates, care networks are evolutive. Events may cause care networks to change, and changes can be inherent to the structure, function, and adequacy of one’s care network. In the paper, we explore this theory in depth, using findings from a quantitative survey we conducted in 2020 in Belgium, regarding informal carers’ experiences of the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paper 2: Exploring migrants’ experiences of care through a transnational convoy of care lens Authors and symposium presenters: Kelly Hall (University of Birmingham) and Majella Kilkey (University of Sheffield) Outline: In this paper, we explore the lives of two different groups of migrants as they age in place: retired British migrants in Spain and post-war Caribbean, Irish and Polish migrants in Britain. We draw on and combine two theoretical frameworks to understand the intersection of migration and care: ‘transnational ageing’ and ‘convoys of care’. We suggest that older migrants are embedded in a ‘transnational convoy of care’; a concept that can enable us to understand migrant care experiences more effectively.

Paper 3: Digitising the care convoy: technology and the social relations of care Authors and symposium presenters: Kate Hamblin and Grace Whitfield (Centre for Care, University of Sheffield) Outline: This paper will explore the role of digital technologies in care convoys – how they are used and how they may alter care by facilitating certain tasks, connections and ‘sociality’ (Austin, 2020) but also create new responsibilities, tensions and risks. In doing so, we will draw on literatures only examining transnational care convoys and technology (Fuller et al., 2020), and related concepts such as ‘digital kinning’ (Baldassar & Wilding, 2020), ‘techno-emotional mediation’ (Alinejad, 2021) and silence and ‘communication voids’ (Sampaio, 2020), as well as literature from Science and Technology Studies which engages with issues of power (Akrich and Latour, 1992).

Paper 4: The (im)possibilities of care convoys Authors and symposium presenters: Chloe Alexander (University of Birmingham) and Jayanthi Lingham (University of Sheffield)
Outline: The care convoys model challenges us to conceptualise exchanges of support through time and to grapple with understanding the changes these caring relationships undergo. The paper presents four critiques that question in turn the discursive, conceptual, experiential and methodological components of the care convoys model. We discuss whether these indicate a restricted potential of the model or rather, signal a need to broaden participants and subjects in the debate about the content, relevance and policy implications of care convoys.

Discussant(s) will be 1-2 people who will offer comments and insights on the papers based on their research expertise in care, practices of care and social and global networks of care. 

Convenors: Dr Obert Tawodzera and Dr Maria Teresa Ferazzoli, IMPACT

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and financial crises, long-term/ social care has reached a new critical point worldwide. This session brings together contributions from three European ‘excellence Centres’ designed to address the present challenges facing long-term/ social care by joining research, lived experiences, and best practice. The first paper will introduce the international long-term/ social care crisis context and how this has provoked the creation of these innovative Centres. In this paper, the authors (Dr Tawodzera and Dr Ferazzoli) will provide a definition of ‘Centres of excellence’ in long-term/ social care and the main challenges that these institutions are trying to tackle across Europe. The following papers will discuss the international experiences of NKa the Swedish national centre of excellence in the field of informal care; Vilans, a National centre for expertise for long term care in the Netherlands; and IMPACT, the new UK centre for evidence implementation. The aim of the presenters is to illustrate what can be learned on the international level from their experiences. More specifically, in the second paper Professor Hanson will discuss the successful experience of the Swedish Family Care Competence Centre in collaboration with the Malardalen University to develop a national knowledge based support for parents and informal caregivers of people with severe disabilities in Sweden using blended learning. The third paper will present the work of Vilans on the development of national long-term care policy and care services in the Netherlands (Professor Minkman). The last paper will present the work of IMPACT (Improving Adult Care Together) and Professor Glasby will illustrate IMPACT delivery models and their functions in translating evidence into practice. 

Convenors: Prof Eva Lloyd, UEL and Dr Amy Horton, UCL

In this symposium four speakers interrogate the impact of Covid-19 on both adult social care and early care and education in England, in Europe and beyond, and explore options for the future. Dr Sara Farris (Goldsmith College, University of London) examines how racialised female care workers have been exploited during the pandemic. Dr Amy  Horton (University College London) presents data from a new study on the impact of different forms of care home ownership on care services and the employment conditions of care workers. Ivana La Valle (University of East London) reports on a 2022 study of the pandemic’s impact on children’s development, on their access to early care and education, and on mothers’ employment and mental health. Professor Eva Lloyd (University of East London) highlights how Covid-19 exacerbated sustainability risks within the rapidly growing corporate childcare sector, while discussant, Dr Kate Hardy (University of Leeds) critiques the presentations’ suggestions for transforming care and their applicability beyond Britain. 

Paper 1 Corporate care and racialised workers in times of crisis.  Dr Sara Farris (Goldsmith)

This paper discusses the results of a project on the growing presence of large corporations in elderly care and child-care. Drawing on qualitative interviews with adult social care workers in France and Italy, and on desk-review in the UK, it shows the strategies corporations use to save on labour costs and increase profits for shareholders. These companies’ reliance upon a largely female racialised workforce that can be hired for low wages, appears to be one of the main tactics used to reduce labour costs. The paper intervenes on debates on care and social reproduction feminism to show that we need to be careful to the new forms in which care is marketized and commodified and what the implications are for gender orders and class exploitation.

Paper 2 Splintering social infrastructures: Financial pressures on the social purpose of non-profit care homes. Dr Amy Horton (UCL)

Internationally, interest is rising in different forms of ownership of care homes, and how these may affect the quality of services and of employment. This paper is based on findings from a study of care homes for older people in the UK during Covid-19. Some charitable providers faced a dilemma between either pursuing a social purpose (accepting new residents without significant assets) or offering what they saw as good jobs to staff, funded by relatively high private fees. I argue that the political economy of care conditions social infrastructures across different ownership models. 

Paper 3 A Covid generated childcare crisis in England. Ivana La Valle (UEL)

A Nuffield Foundation study on the impacts of the pandemic on early childhood education and care (ECEC) shows a system in crisis where children’s access to ECEC can still be influenced by their parents’ socio-economic circumstances, rather than their development needs and their right to early education, and where lack of access to ECEC services is a barrier to work, particularly for less affluent mothers. As well as exploring these challenges the presentation will outline lessons from the pandemic to build a better and more resilient ECEC system.

Paper 4 A sustainability crisis for English for-profit childcare. Prof Eva Lloyd (UEL)

In 2022 a UCL based research team published a Nuffield Foundation funded study which traced developments in the English childcare market over the last twenty years. National and international for-profit-childcare companies, with complex financial structures, increasingly came to dominate this market. Relying heavily on private equity investors,  and fuelling expansion through mergers and acquisitions, while carrying major debts, their sustainability is at risk. The pandemic exacerbated this risk, which is less for not-for-profits.