Adult Social Care - University of Birmingham

Adult social care researchers at the University of Birmingham are exploring the possibilities for reducing, delaying and preventing the need for social care and exploring alternative types of support.

The current care system faces multiple challenges as the demand on services grows and the available funding shrinks and we need to understand better what works and doesn’t work in the current system, so that money can be spent effectively and outcomes improved.

Our people

Projects

Current Projects

Jon Glasby / Robin Miller – What’s going to happen to us next? What happens to people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people when they leave long-stay hospital settings, and what sorts of support helps people to stay out of hospital?
Jon Glasby – IMPACT (Improving Adult Social Care Together)
Catherine Needham / Emily Burn – Care as a complex ecosystem – ESRC Centre for Care
Chloe Alexander – Coproducing research with young carers – ESRC Centre for Care
Kelly Hall / Caroline Jackson – Research Better Together
Jerry Tew – Family Group Conferencing in adult social care and mental health: exploring how it works and what difference it can make in people's lives
Louise Overton – The costs of caring - Understanding the lived experience of unpaid caregiving and risks to financial wellbeing
Catherine Needham and Emily Burn - ASSURE: understanding the impact of CQC assurance on local authorities

Completed Projects

Kelly Hall – Understanding the contribution of social enterprise to the social care sector: An exploratory study
Denise Tanner – The contribution of social workers to older people’s well-being
Catherine Needham – Councillors and Care: Understanding and enhancing the role of councillors in shaping adult social care practice
Jason Schaub – Understanding social care assessments of older LGBTQ+ people
Jerry Tew – Combining asset-based innovations to deliver whole system change within adult services
Phil Kinghorn – “When the money runs out”: capital depletion and transition out of self-funded care
Jon Glasby – 'Achieving closure' - improving outcomes when care homes close
Jon Glasby – Why are we stuck in hospital? Understanding service user, family and staff perspectives when transforming care for people with learning disabilities and/or autism

Engagement and impact

We are committed to undertaking research which will have an impact on the wellbeing of people, families and communities through influencing adult social care policy and practice. To help us achieve this impact, we engage with people with lived experience of adult social care in how we prioritise, design and undertake our research, and have strong connections with adult social care practice networks in the West Midlands, across the UK and internationally.

Lived Experience Panel

Adult social care research at the University is supported by a panel of people with lived experience of adult social care. This includes people who have directly received practical and/or financial support, and those who have cared for someone accessing such support. The Lived Experience Panel meets every three months with the adult social care cluster leads and researchers undertaking research projects. They help us to identify what are the important topics which should be researched, improve the design of research projects which are being developed, and understand the implications of research findings for people who access social care support. They are also central to our plans of what research should be undertaken in the future.

For more details of our Lived Experience Panel, please email sscr@contacts.bham.ac.uk

West Midlands Region

The University of Birmingham has a strong collaboration with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services in the West Midlands and its associated practice networks (including Principal Social Workers, Occupational Therapists and Commissioners). Related activities include undertaking research projects commissioned by WM ADASS and engaging local authorities and other regional social care stakeholders in research projects funded by other bodies. We are also engaged in a long-term initiative to strengthen the research culture within adult social care in the region in partnership with other universities in the region, the Clinical research network, the Research design service, and Birmingham Voluntary Service Council.

UK and international

As members of national research programmes such as the School for Social Care Research and the Centre of Care, we are actively leading and improving collaboration between adult social care practice and research across the UK. For example, IMPACT is the UK centre for implementing evidence in adult social care, working across the UK to facilitate practical changes on the ground in the realities of front-line services and people’s lives. Building on our extensive research in relation to the implementation of strengths-based practice, we have developed a leadership programme with the Social Care Institute of Excellence which has participants from across the UK and a diverse range of professional backgrounds. We are active contributors to international networks related to adult social care such as the European Social Network and the International Foundation for Integrated Care. The University is also the co-ordinator of the Universitas21 Social Work Community of Practice.

For more details of our practice and policy engagement in the UK or internationally, please email r.s.miller@bham.ac.uk.

Publications

Glasby, J, Farquharson, C, Needham, C & Hamblin, K 2025, 'Adult social care reform cannot afford to wait', British Medical Journal, vol. 388, no. 8455, r63.

Tanner, D, Willis, P, Beedell, P, Nosowska, G, Milne, A, Nelson-Becker, H & Perry, E 2025, '‘Being that hopeful person’: the contribution of social workers to older people’s wellbeing', British Journal of Social Work.

Lindley, L, Watkins, M, Dowding, D, Overton, L, Friend, A, Wilberforce, M & Birks, Y 2025, 'Developing a decision aid for older people who pay for social care', Journal of Long-Term Care, vol. 2025, pp. 142-153.

Bradbury-Jones, C, Damery, S, Fruin, K, Gunby, C, Harlock, J, Hebberts, L, Isham, L, Jones, A-M, Maxted, F, Mighty, A, Parmar, P, Patterson, L, Schaub, J, Scott, F, Smailes, H, Smith, D & Taylor, J 2025, 'Exploring voluntary sector specialist services for victim-survivors of sexual violence in England: the PROSPER co-production study', NIHR Journals Library, vol. 13, no. 10, pp. 1-104.

Needham, C & Burn, E 2025, ''Law but not law': explaining unenacted policy as a type of policy failure', Policy and politics.