Someone living in the affluent London suburb of Kensington and Chelsea is much more likely to live a long and disability-free life than their counterpart who lives in Blackpool or in a deprived area of Manchester. These ‘extra’ 10 years of life are a consequence of the social conditions in which they each live: poverty, disability, damp or overcrowded housing, a poor diet all have a negative impact upon their health and wellbeing. These social inequalities cause health inequalities. By addressing the social conditions of people’s lives, social workers and social care workers make a key contribution to reducing health inequalities and improving social outcomes among the communities in which they work.
Strengths-based approach (SBA)
Strengths-based (or asset-based) approaches focus on individuals’ strengths (including personal strengths and social and community networks) and not on their deficits. Strengths-based practice is holistic and multidisciplinary and works with the individual to promote their wellbeing. It is outcomes led and not services led.
Personalisation
Ensuring people with care and support needs can lead the lives they want and that social care services can work with people as partners to make this happen.
Co-production
A way of working, whereby everybody works together on an equal basis to create a service or come to a decision which works for them all.
Beyond COVID: New thinking on the future of adult social care
Progressive new SCIE position paper for health and social care commissioners and senior managers. Includes innovative recommendations and advice to help care providers think about the future of adult social care after COVID-19.
A telling experience
Understanding the impact of Covid-19 on people who access care and support – a rapid evidence review with recommendations.
Making it real
A framework to support good personalised care and support for providers, commissioners and people who access services.
Resources from our archive
- Social care and health inequalities (July 2013)
- Video: Gypsy travellers video case study (May 2012)
- Video: Refugees and asylum seekers video case study (June 2011)
- Research briefing: Supporting black and minority ethnic older people's mental wellbeing: accounts of social care practice (December 2010)
- Research briefing: The contribution of social work and social care to the reduction of health inequalities: four case studies (June 2010)
Latest from Social Care Online
These are the latest resources from Social Care Online, the UK’s largest database of care knowledge and research.
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Approaches to reducing health inequalities to tackle elective recovery
- Social Care Institute for Excellence, 2022 -
Social care recording
- Social Care Institute for Excellence, 2021 -
Connected: remote technology in mental health services
- Centre for Mental Health, 2022 -
The forgotten crisis: exploring the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on disabled people
- Health Foundation, 2021 -
Webinar: Future options for housing and care
- Social Care Institute for Excellence, 2021 -
Examples of co-production in social care
- Social Care Institute for Excellence, 2022 -
Sudden and unexpected deaths in infancy and childhood: National Child Mortality Database Programme thematic report
- National Child Mortality Database, 2022 -
Mind the gap: what's stopping change? The cost-of-living crisis and the rise in inequalities in Wales
- Welsh NHS Confederation, 2022 -
Monitoring the Mental Health Act in 2021/22
- Care Quality Commission, 2022 -
Everything affects health: an update to our briefing 'Mind the gap: what's stopping change?'
- Welsh NHS Confederation, 2022