WoSCiP
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Women’s Social Care in Prison: Identifying needs and an appropriate service response
IRAS ID
315947
Contact name
Katrina Forsyth
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 5 months, 30 days
Research summary
Further to the introduction of the Care Act (2014), local authorities in England and Wales are responsible for identifying, assessing, and providing appropriate support to meet the social care needs of people in prison. Women in prison are a vulnerable and socially disadvantaged group, whose needs are different and more complex than those of non-imprisoned women and imprisoned men. Individuals with eligible social care needs are entitled to support should their wellbeing be affected. Moreover, there has been little research on women’s social care needs in prison, the nature of these needs, or how best to meet them. Therefore, this research aims to fulfil this deficit.
The study, funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), will identify how best to meet women’s social care needs in prison and inform the development of services with a mixed-method study encompassing four Work Packages (WPs). WP1: Prevalence Study. Identifying the social care needs of 247 adult women in four prison sites via semi-structured interviews. WP2: Identifying the social care arrangements of local authorities, prisons and healthcare partners by conducting an online survey of 12 women’s prisons and corresponding local authorities in England. WP3: Best practice case studies. Participants will be recruited from four local authorities implementing different models of social care. We will interview women with social care needs; social care practitioners; commissioners; prison custody, health and social care staff; and probation staff to establish views on current and optimum social care provision. WP4: Modified balance of care (BoC) study. We will use a modified BoC approach to identify the nature, extent, and indicative costs of the social care services needed by imprisoned women. This approach incorporates existing local data, research findings, service user, and practitioner judgements.
REC name
Wales REC 3
REC reference
22/WA/0325
Date of REC Opinion
15 Nov 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion