The role of voluntary organisations in promoting carers' work-care reconciliation; a case study of the CReate project

This thesis examines the specific role voluntary organisations can play in promoting carers’ work-care reconciliation. It uses an in-depth longitudinal case study of a work-care reconciliation project delivered by a voluntary organisation to investigate how an organisation implemented support services for carers in practice, the challenges they faced, and the successes they achieved. An ethic of care framework informs the thesis and analysis focuses on relationships and social processes. Using evidence from the case study, it is argued that voluntary organisations can promote carers’ work-care reconciliation by ‘delivering person-centred support’ and contributing to ‘creating carer-friendly workplaces’. It is suggested that, ultimately, the moral and political principles of ‘an ethic of care’ are important for understanding how voluntary organisations can support the work-care reconciliation of carers and the concept ‘civil society’ helps us understand why they can promote carers’ work-care reconciliation in practice.

The challenges to sustainability voluntary organisations providing work-care reconciliation support face and changes within civil society, however, appear to threaten the ability of organisations to deliver services in line with an ethic of care and so promote carers’ work-care reconciliation. The thesis contributes to debates regarding how carers can be supported to combine work and care and the changing role of voluntary organisations in society and makes three principal original contributions to knowledge: it presents evidence from longitudinal research into the specific role voluntary organisations can play in promoting carers’ work-care reconciliation, it develops a theoretical understanding of the role voluntary organisations can play and it provides insight into the specific challenges voluntary organisations delivering work-care reconciliation support can face and how they can be negotiated in practice, over time.