Human Rights and Social Care Forum

ABOUT THE FORUM:

The Human Rights and Social Care forum is a series of events for sharing ideas, knowledge and debate between social care service users, providers, researchers, advocacy groups and anyone interested in the broad topic of human rights and social care internationally.

The ultimate aim for this event is to make it as meaningful and useful to people drawing on social care, carers, care providers, policy makers, researchers and others interested and/or working in the field as possible. The themes of the event are based on what people in social care have told us would be interesting and useful for them. Please get in touch if you have ideas for future themes: caroline.green@kcl.ac.uk

With this Forum, we also want to generate good practice points how to make (online) events as inclusive as possible. A lot of the work is happening in the background. For example:

– We are reaching out to people drawing on social care and inviting them them to shape future Fourm events, actively contribute and participate. This means that the event schedule may change over time.

– We are seeking out peoples’ needs for the event to make it the best experience for them as possible. For example, we will have captions on, we will ask people to leave their videos on when they speak if possible. PLEASE GET IN TOUCH TO TELL US ABOUT YOUR NEEDS AND PREFERENCES.

– The Forum itself can be accessed and left at any point. We will make recordings available and a feature for people to share comments and ideas after the event.

– Importantly, we know that there is a lot of work to be done to make this social care event one that is by, with and for the people drawing on social care. We won’t do it perfectly but we will strive for perfection by constantly learning about what went well and what could be done more of.

THEME OF THE FIRST FORUM: EQUALITY, DIGNITY AND CARE HOMES – THE WAY FORWARD

The theme of the first forum to be held on the 28th of June 2022 online exclusively will be: Equality, Dignity and Care Homes – The Way Forward. In the light of the human rights situation of people in care homes in the UK and worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, we will explore together what lessons we have learned for human rights in care homes and what the next concrete steps are to ensure the equality and dignity of people in care homes.

The first forum will be chaired by Dr Kalpa Kharicha, Senior Research Fellow, NIHR Health & Social Care Research Unit (Chair)

Opening of the Forum:

Residents of Hazelgrove Court Care Home and their activity coordinator, Sharon Lewis (pre-recorded for accessibility)

Speakers:

Dr Donald Macaskill, Chief Executive, Scottish Care and leading expert on human rights and social care

Diane Mayhew, Rights For Residents, advocate for the human rights of care home residents

Dr Clarissa Giebel, Senior Research Fellow, NIHR ARC NWC, Department of Primary Care and Mental Health, University of Liverpool with expertise in inequalities in access to care and dementia care

The event starts at 2 pm and ends at 4 pm. Speakers will have 15 minutes to present. We will then have 10 minutes of Q&A. The session will also include breakout rooms of smaller groups of participants to discuss the topic amongst themselves.

Certificates for attendance are available on request. Please get in touch with Caroline Green at caroline.green@kcl.ac.uk for any questions and/or to request a certificate of attendance.