Welfare
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
- What technologies can mitigate work-related trauma experienced by police staff? For example, using computer vision technologies to reduce manual assessments of child exploitation images.
- What science-informed changes can be made to policing workplaces that will support the wellbeing of vulnerable or struggling staff?
- What workplace wellbeing innovations would police staff be accepting of, use and find most supportive?
- What are the public’s perceptions, beliefs, and concerns about policing’s existing and emerging science and technology capabilities?
- What are the key drivers of economic growth and rising living standards, and how do they vary between different parts of the UK – regionally and locally?
- What have been the impact and effectiveness of the AP Specialist Taskforces and SAFE Taskforces programmes? What are the implications for spreading and scaling the models?
- How can we best support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and those who attend Alternative Provision (AP)?
- What offers would further incentivise parents, particularly from disadvantaged communities, to take up childcare and get back into work? This should include building a local level understanding of supply and demand, costs, and provider profit margins.
- 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?
- Which disabled people are supported by the benefit system and which are not? How do policy choices impact this?
- Statistics representing society: How well or poorly do statistics represent society, and what are the impacts of this on how they are used and valued?
- What are the key factors that could drive improved productivity and efficiency in the delivery of DWP services? How can DWP services be designed to effectively identify vulnerable groups and those with complex multiple needs, in order to facilitate early intervention in partnership with other organisations?
- How can DWP best learn from serious cases to develop responsive and robust services for those most at risk?
- What are the best ways to encourage engagement and awareness of the State Pension and Pensioner Benefits?
- How can DWP enhance its understanding of the most appropriate measures of independent living?
- How can DWP support carers in their caring roles? Including any return to work or progression in the labour market?
- How have disabled people been affected by the recent Cost of Living challenges, compared with non-disabled people, and have they sought out extra resources to help them cope?
- Which interventions for disabled people are most effective in supporting movements into work? What barriers prevent disabled people and/or people with health conditions from moving into, and progressing in, work?
- To what extent could increased progression help to move individuals out of poverty? How should in-work progression support be targeted?
- How can DWP ensure all those entitled to claim benefits or access DWP services are reached? What barriers to accessing support services are faced by individuals from disadvantaged groups?
- How can DWP and its partners maximise sustainable compliance with child maintenance arrangements?
- How effective are child maintenance and associated policies at supporting separated families, encouraging family-based arrangements, reducing conflict and helping children and adults achieve better outcomes? And how does this differ by group?
- How can the benefit system best help low income and vulnerable households with their housing costs? What is the impact of DWP’s expenditure on housing support? What factors impact on evictions, homelessness and rough sleeping? How effective are policies designed to reduce homelessness?
- How effective has government’s cost of living support been?
- What impacts has COVID-19 had on income poverty, material deprivation and the cost of living?
- What types and combinations of support, incentives and conditionality are most effective at enabling and encouraging people in work and in receipt of Universal Credit to increase their hours and earnings to progress in work?
- What additional labour market barriers do those from disadvantaged groups (such as ex-offenders, homeless people), face? How can DWP best support those with multiple, complex needs to gain and retain employment?
- What is most effective in preventing people from falling out of the labour market? Does this differ for different groups? Who is best placed to deliver support?
- What is the impact of the digitisation of information on transport services on disabled passengers?
- How can we embed better evidence into our investment decisions, the impacts of investment on transport users and communities (including vulnerable and protected groups)?
- What role could the theory underpinning social welfare functions play in analysis associated to the Government’s levelling-up agenda? What role could new census data play in the analysis of levelling-up?
- What types of approaches lead to better outcomes for condition-specific learning needs in mainstream schooling? What works for SEND outreach work, for example from special schools to support learners in mainstream schools?
- How are perceptions of international trade affected by the inclusion of sustainability and welfare provisions in trade agreements?
- 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 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?
- What are the factors associated with teacher and pupil wellbeing, and what interventions and approaches are effective in supporting and promoting wellbeing of all in schools and colleges?
- How have different sectors (aerospace, financial services, telecoms), sizes of business, regions and the self-employed been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, and how might they be impacted differently by the recovery phase?
- Who is affected by it?
- What works in reducing loneliness and what are the challenges and opportunities?
- What are the benefits of reducing loneliness?
- What are the challenges and issues facing young people? What are the costs of not addressing these issues/risks, or improving youth outcomes?
- What social and economic value does this sector provide?
- What affects and supports resilience at the organisational level?
- What is the additional value beyond wages (e.g. wellbeing) that can be used to show the welfare impact of cultural and creative employment and therefore the non-wage impact of cultural education?
- What is claimants’ experience of the welfare disputes process (Mandatory Reconsiderations and Appeals) and how does it affect them?
- What are the best examples of how to incentivise local residents to support new housing and infrastructure in their local areas?
- What support do children and victims of domestic abuse living in temporary accommodation and domestic abuse safe accommodation need and to what extent is this being delivered?
- What research can provide robust evidence about the health impacts of poor indoor air quality, overheating, fuel poverty, and exposure to hazards?
- What data, evidence and analytical tools (preventative analytics) are required to identify populations at risk of homelessness, such as families facing eviction, victims of domestic abuse, or individuals with precarious work conditions? What are the best means of outreach and engagement with at-risk populations?
- How can we best support children and adults who lack or have lacked family support (such as those who have experienced care) to maximise their opportunities to live a healthy and rewarding life?
- What family focused solutions work to ensure that children and their parents have the support needed to meet their basic needs for housing security and quality of life?
- • How can we ensure staff maintain stable relationships with the children and families that they work with where appropriate to counter disruption in other aspects of their lives?
- • How effective are changes to the (children's) residential care market in ensuring the right number and types of good quality, stable registered places across the country, which provide good value for public money?
- How can we better support families and children to keep children safe and, where possible, with their birth families?
- What works best to identify and intervene early to support vulnerable children and their families before they enter the social care system?
- What factors influence children’s brain development from birth to the early 20s, and what works in supporting healthy brain development to enable learning? (See also our Areas of Research Interest in relation to the ‘Every child achieving and thriving’ pillar of the Opportunity Mission)
- What are the most cost-effective ways to support parents and carers to help their children to learn and develop (from early years through to adulthood), including through play?
- How do children’s home lives influence whether they can thrive and achieve throughout their lives? How do both their material and non-material living conditions affect their later outcomes?
- How can education and other services best support parents and carers to help their children learn outside formal education settings (including in other locations beyond the home when the home learning environment is not conducive to learning)?
- How well-used are available family services (such as family hubs and children’s centres services) and how representative are these users? How can we make these services more attractive and easier to access for those parents and carers whose children stand to benefit the most?
- How do we improve connections and relationships between parents and professionals (e.g. through parental networks)?
- Which parenting programmes are most effective, especially in engaging disadvantaged parents and families with a social worker? Are they equally accessible to all families, including those that are hard to reach, and easily scalable?
- What more can be done to best support families with children under the age of 2, to give those children, particularly the most disadvantaged, the best start in life?
- Which early childhood services, or combinations of services, are most effective in improving the (health, cognitive, socio-emotional, and educational) development of disadvantaged children before age 5? How does this vary by children’s age (for example 0-2 and 3-5) and for different domains of learning (such as literacy and maths)?
- How can we identify those who will not achieve a good level of development at age 5, to help target early childhood services before school entry?
- How can we best develop tools to assess development before school-age, so we can measure important changes in educational outcomes over time and understand the relative impact of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and home learning environment?
- Which interventions in early years settings are most effective in supporting child development, for whom, when, where and why?
- How do we ensure that all children, particularly those in most need, can access and participate in good quality early learning?
- What can we do to reduce barriers to take-up of childcare and to work, particularly for parents from disadvantaged communities?
- How can parental engagement in their children's early education best be enhanced, especially for those parents in disadvantaged households, and how does this vary for mothers and fathers?
- What is the optimal amount and type of early education in formal settings? How does this vary for different groups of children?
- What works to raise attainment, taking account of different starting points and different contexts experienced by children, including the most disadvantaged?
- • How can we support all children by removing barriers to opportunity, balancing high standards for all with support for those who need it most, including the most disadvantaged children?
- Are there any analytical tools we should be aware of that could support work at the local level?
- • What impact do educational settings and practices have on longer-term health (including dental health)?
- • What models of [school-aged childcare] provision (e.g. breakfast clubs, after school clubs, homework clubs and holiday provision) are most effective (for whom, when, where and why)?
- How can we mitigate the factors that put stress on families and enable them to have suitable housing and good quality home environments? • How much information and understanding do education providers across our sectors have about students’ home circumstances, and what adjustments do they make?
- • How can staff best be supported in dealing with challenging behaviour, in ways that reliably reduce disruption to peers, improve pupil wellbeing, behaviour and attainment, and aid staff retention?