Sharon Hutchings
Under the guidance and supervision of Professor Peter Huxley, Dr Anne Krayer and Dr John Carden I am working towards a PhD exploring contemporary models of front-line social care for people with recurrent mental ill health. The study concerns people who experience repeated episodes of mental ill-health to better understand what they consider to be effective. A second component of the research aims to explore how Fair Work 2019 Wales supports frontline social care staff to work in an effective and supportive way to help people achieve their goals. The study will address these questions using interviews and surveys with staff and service-users and include co-produced work.
Background
From 1998 I worked in adult and community and higher education until joining Nottingham Trent University full time in 2008. As a public sociologist I worked in partnership with local authorities and not for profit organisations to address social inequalities/injustice and social change in community and policy settings. This work sat under the broad umbrella of social in/justice and social change working with marginalised communities and where possible in participatory ways. Specific research interests include precarity, work and employment, human rights, community engagement, marginalised communities, social harms and a structural approach to mental health and well-being in the community. These interests were formalised under NTU’s Work Futures group and the Centre for Policy, Citizenship and Society and were core to my teaching.
Research Approaches
I aim to work in relational and affirmative ways with people and communities and seek to democratise knowledge both in the making of and what is defined as knowledge. Working on multiple projects with multiple publics has facilitated a full appreciation of research and in particular participatory approaches. The need to be inclusive, resist language and practices that create barriers and to recognise the capacity for learning with and from is core to my work.