Social services
Research Topic
Language: English
This is a research topic created to provide authors with a place to attach new problem publications.
Research problems linked to this topic
- How do we best assist early advice and support services to deal with changes in legal need in the population and the demand for services? How do we measure the impact of early advice on short, medium, and longer-term outcomes, and the economic costs and benefits?
- How effective has government’s cost of living support been?
- What are the impacts of supervision within different premises, for example community hubs? Can these assist with access to services post-supervision?
- What can we learn from the COVID-19 shielding programme and other programmes that supported our most vulnerable groups during the pandemic? What were the costs and benefits of different interventions?
- What lessons need to be learned about the respective roles and contributions of the public, private and third sectors in the design and delivery of local public services?
- What interventions are most effective at helping people to sustain tenancies after receiving support?
- What works to reduce reoffending for different groups? For example, those with mental health problems, or those repeatedly convicted of low-level offences?
- How can services be better co-ordinated, integrated, timed and targeted to help vulnerable groups? What is the role of coordinating services for people at risk of homelessness who are being discharged from institutional settings (hospital, prison, the military)?
- Where are the notable gaps in the provision of legal advice and support, and how can we best intervene to help fill them? How do different advice and support services interact, share information, and refer individuals between organisations?
- How effective are the key reforms set out in ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ in response to the Care Review that seek to improve the provision of children's social care across Local Authorities? These include recruitment of foster carers, support for kinship carers and provision of children's care placements.
- How can we better understand drivers of demand in the justice system, so that we support early problem resolution where appropriate, whilst ensuring the formal justice system is accessible to those who need it?
- How could machine learning and predictive analytics be used robustly and ethically to create claimant personas/segments for disability benefits?
- How do we improve legal awareness and capability in the population, so that people are able to identify they have a legal problem and seek appropriate help?
- What is claimants’ experience of the welfare disputes process (Mandatory Reconsiderations and Appeals) and how does it affect them?
- How is the strategic regeneration of large areas best managed over the long term?
- How do staff qualifications and experience levels impact the delivery of programmes and their outcomes?
- What are the best ways of ensuring local growth interventions benefit intended beneficiaries in an area (e.g. disadvantaged local residents) rather than inward commuters?
- Improving outcomes for victims and survivors, including children.
- Who is most/least effectively helped by the Homeless Reduction Act? What does that mean for how interventions are best targeted?
- How do we incorporate the full spectrum of natural capital and the value of the benefits it provides into policy development, analysis, and appraisal? What are the tools we need to make use of robust economic values easier for everyone – across government and beyond?
- How do geographical and demographic factors affect legal aid awareness and uptake? How does legal aid uptake vary by eligibility?
- Equipping refugees for life in the UK and for returning home if/when they can.
- Reducing victimisation and repeat victimisation in relation to domestic abuse
- How can strength-based approaches nurture positive attitudes to rehabilitation that guard against reoffending? What approaches enable the development of pro-social identity?
- Supporting partners and communities to reduce crime and vulnerability
- How can we better understand how problems link, interact, and reinforce, and how people move through different systems as they attempt to resolve them? Including unemployment, debt, housing, or family issues.
- Beyond the UK, what can we learn from other countries in developing predictive models to help us target prevention more effectively at vulnerable groups?
- Which groups struggle most to resolve their justice problems, either through inaction or difficulty accessing the justice system and wider support services?
- How does a child’s journey through different systems of support, and the different qualities of the experiences along the way, serve to protect or expose them to involvement in serious youth violence?
- Climate projections (for example UK Climate Projections 18) indicate increased climate variability and extreme events (storms, heat waves, drought) in the future. How will these changes impact natural and human systems? How can we protect against damage caused by such increased variability?
- What are people’s experiences of dealing with justice problems? How can they be supported to access and navigate the justice system, enforce their rights, and achieve the best outcomes? How does this vary by problem type, level of legal capability, and awareness of support?
- What lessons can be taken from early prevention strategies targeted at vulnerable groups (e.g. those at risk from domestic violence, rough sleeping and homelessness)? What implications do they have for effective policy design?
- How do orders made in private family law proceedings – for example, resolving disputes about child or financial arrangements – affect individual and family outcomes? What works, for whom, to deliver positive and sustainable outcomes?
- What can we learn from best practice in public service delivery from across the UK?
- Interventions to reduce different types of child sexual abuse.
- Supporting those who are admitted, both for their own and for wider benefit.
- How effective are support structures, for example intermediaries, in facilitating access to justice for vulnerable people, including victims and witnesses?
- How can DWP support carers in their caring roles? Including any return to work or progression in the labour market?
- How do we encourage the design of longer lasting and easily repairable consumer items?
- What is most effective in framing and targeting policies and programmes so they reach vulnerable black and minority ethnic groups, and increase take-up by those most likely to benefit?
- How can we better isolate the impact of multiple interventions within an individual's time in prison? How can we better route individuals onto appropriate programmes in a timely way?
- What does the evidence show about how the pandemic has affected people’s preferences about where they live and where they are able to work (e.g. rural areas versus cities)? How are these preferences different across cohorts, such as socio-economic, and locations? Are any such trends likely to be long-term?
- What makes communities resilient to natural hazards and other crises? What can we learn from the coronavirus pandemic about the loss of resilience and protecting vulnerable communities to inform future response to crises? What are the important social dimensions for achieving environmental and infrastructure resilience?
- What are the best ways to encourage engagement and awareness of the State Pension and Pensioner Benefits?
- How can we minimise the harm to those engaging with the family justice system? What factors affect the effectiveness of Domestic Violence Protection Orders and other measures in the Domestic Abuse Bill?
- How does investment in the environment bring benefits to society, including through health, wellbeing, and natural capital? Who are the beneficiaries and how do we quantify and communicate those benefits – and costs?
- How do we improve parental access to, and engagement with, family services? How do we improve connections and relationships between parents and professionals (e.g. through parental networks)?
- When people seek advice, how do we ensure they find useful and accessible information that empowers them – either towards self-help, or to access the most appropriate services for their needs?
- What is the prevalence of different pedagogical approaches in different early years settings, including maintained nurseries and nursery provision in primary schools? How does this vary across the workforce? Which of these approaches have the greatest impact on development?
- How can we better understand the future demand and needs of our workforce – including learning and development needs – to ensure effective workload management, particularly in relation to serious and high-risk cases?
- What will be the future level and mix of demand for different DWP services through different channels, (digital/online and video, phone, face-to-face)? Does effectiveness vary for different groups? How effective are digital/virtual services (for example labour market support, drug and alcohol interventions, parenting interventions) compared to face-to-face provision, in helping people move into work?
- How might the COVID-19 pandemic affect homelessness and rough sleeping in the longer term?
- How effective are the Family Hubs pilots in improving outcomes for young children and their families? What works best to engage families and deliver services?
- How can we better quantify and measure the benefits of social work assessment, training and development in terms of child outcomes such as wellbeing and educational achievement?
- How are tribunals affected by the policies and services of other government departments, and how can we better understand upstream decision-making processes? For example, regarding welfare policy.
- What are the most effective ways to engage employers, health professionals, employees and other relevant stakeholders to retain and support disabled people and people with health conditions in employment? What policies and processes do employers have in place that could influence employee health, well-being and productivity (such as sick pay, access to occupational health services, health insurance provision)?
- What is most effective in ensuring employment support operates in a joined-up way with other forms of support?
- What are children’s end-to-end routes through the care system, and how does this impact on later life outcomes, such as educational achievement, wellbeing and labour market outcomes?
- How does receipt of benefit payments affect disabled people and people with long-term health conditions? What impact does it have on independence, financial security, employment, wellbeing?
- How effective are different prison types, categories and functions, such as reception, training and resettlement, in meeting their core objectives?
- What constitutes an optimal caseload mix for probation staff, to appropriately balance risk levels across their workload, whilst delivering the most effective support for individuals, with multiple and complex needs, under their supervision?
- What is the impact of housing access, affordability and associated support on homelessness?
- Which elements of a multi-agency/multi-departmental approach to addressing homelessness have the biggest impacts?
- What are the long-term impacts on children’s developmental outcomes because of placements made under public law orders in care proceedings? Including care orders, placement orders, and special guardianship orders?
- What is the future need/demand for supported housing and how do its costs/cost-effectiveness compare with alternative types of support?
- What are the characteristics of the specialist care workforce (e.g. social workers, children's homes, and early help providers)? What are the barriers to specialist staff recruitment and retention, and how can we overcome these?
- How can we better understand the impact of interventions delivered in the community? What timing and sequencing of services, interventions and support works to sustain positive outcomes for individuals? For example, accommodation; employment; relationship, family and peer support?
- Impacts of different types of new arrivals on local communities, the economy and public services (monetised and non-monetised costs and benefits).
- What is known about drivers and barriers to parental engagement in their children’s education in the home? How can improvements in the home-learning environment mitigate the effect of disadvantage on pupils’ attainment?
- What impact do different levels of supervision – such as staff (including attrition), frequency, length, intensity – have on rehabilitation and outcomes?
- Understanding which individuals are at risk of becoming offenders (and/or victims), for what reasons and at what stages of their lives.
- How can we better understand the role of staff engagement, oversight and support – particularly managerial support – for those working with high-risk individuals?
- Intervention programmes for offenders who view online indecent images of children.
- The elements of preventative programmes that are most effective, with whom, when and why.
- How can we encourage or incentivise behavioural change to achieve positive outcomes for the environment, and how can we enable appropriate informed adaptive management with communities?
- Relationships and trust: How can we help ensure relationships between individuals in the justice system are mutually effective and built on trust? How can procedural justice, for example, help develop relationships, build trust, and create and sustain outcomes for individuals?
- What does the evidence tell us about what works to reduce and prevent homelessness, including virtual and digital interventions? What are the most robust impact evaluation methods for assessing the impact of our specific policy interventions in this complex area?