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Coronavirus response must include digital access to connect us all

Coronavirus response must include digital access to connect us all

Crossing the digital divide is essential to ensuring that the response to COVID-19 includes us all, say the Addressing Poverty with Lived Experience (APLE) Collective. For the APLE Collective, digital exclusion means exclusion from voice, from an ability to participate in the everyday. It means being silenced. It means our knowledge is ignored, which exacerbates economic and social divides. As a result, a digital divide opens. The digital divide doesn't just mean having access to wifi, but the ability to pay for it. Our communities who live on a low income or social security benefits are unable to pay for this access. The digital divide also incurs expenses when paying for hardware (computers and devices) and finally people may not…
Dr Neil Thompson
May 14, 2020
Unpaid carers were isolated even before lockdown – now we’re invisible

Unpaid carers were isolated even before lockdown – now we’re invisible

When people stand at their door to clap every Thursday evening, they might be applauding NHS staff or social care workers. But how many are thinking about the country’s army of unpaid carers? For the past eight years, my brother and I have been caring for my mother, who has early onset dementia, diabetes and other health issues. My brother bears most of the burden, but most days I make the two-bus, six-mile journey to visit. My brother and I wash, dress and feed Mum. I wash her hair and do her nails once a week. We administer eye drops every day, as she’s had cataracts. She has incontinence issues and we administer a weekly enema. We have little to…
Dr Neil Thompson
May 14, 2020
50 years is long enough: gender inequality and the fight for equal pay

50 years is long enough: gender inequality and the fight for equal pay

Join The Equality Trust for this interactive conference, bringing together a range of speakers to share their insights and explore how we can get organised to finally win equal pay during this challenging period. Women, particularly those in low-paid work and the gig economy, are already some of the hardest hit economically by the COVID-19 crisis. Winning equal pay is more important now than ever before. Join us on Friday 29th May to mark the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act 1970, the landmark legislation which made equal pay for equal work a legal right for all. This conference will give participants the opportunity to explore the challenges of winning equal pay from a range of perspectives and begin…
Dr Neil Thompson
May 14, 2020
Neil Thompson’s Lessons for Living – Clarify boundaries

Neil Thompson’s Lessons for Living – Clarify boundaries

Often confusion arises because there is a lack of clarity about who is responsible for what. The more pressurized the situation is, the more likely this problem is to occur. This confusion can breed anxiety and that anxiety, in turn, can lead to fuzzy thinking which then contributes to confusion about boundaries. There is therefore much to be gained from being clear about where the boundaries lie. It is important to be clear about what you are personally responsible for in any given situation. But it is also important to be clear about what part you play in any shared responsibility. Are the others who share that responsibility clear about their contribution and are you all clear about how you…
Dr Neil Thompson
April 30, 2020
Everyday Inequality

Everyday Inequality

Let me start by telling you a secret, you can’t tell my boss though. When I first got a job at The Equality Trust I didn’t really know what inequality was. This is probably partly down to my privilege, but if you asked me to define it, there and then, as I was being interviewed, I’d have been toast. So when I started at The Equality Trust, I did what everyone does, I googled it. Then I read books on it, really good books. Then I watched Ted Talks on it and listened to podcasts but still it couldn’t quite stick. I couldn’t quite make sense of it in my head. Until I heard a story about it. Then I…
Dr Neil Thompson
April 30, 2020
Britain’s lockdown diaries expose gulf in wellbeing between rich and poor

Britain’s lockdown diaries expose gulf in wellbeing between rich and poor

Ted has been buoyant since the first day of lockdown. He is retired and lives in a village near Salisbury with his wife. They are financially secure and “continue to enjoy good health and have all we need at home”. He can still garden, cycle and enjoy the countryside. For him, and a fifth of Britons surveyed, it is business as usual. A collection of lockdown diaries compiled by 50 Britons over three weeks reveals a bleak contrast between those who, like Ted, can afford to cope in the current crisis, and those struggling to feed their families and maintain their physical and mental health. In a study put together by Britain Thinks, a third of respondents keeping weekly diaries…
Dr Neil Thompson
April 30, 2020
Three ways social workers can support children in care

Three ways social workers can support children in care

Every year, our Bright Spots research programme works with local authorities across the country to understand the experience of their children in care and care leavers and explore ways in which their experiences can be improved. In one of our surveys a child reported: “I hate that when the register comes up on the screen and others in the class can see that I am CLA . It winds me up even though everyone knows. I don’t like to be different”. This alerted the local authority who cared for the child about how they felt about the school register. With this knowledge, their virtual school could contact schools to ask them to stop this practice. Click here to read more…
Dr Neil Thompson
April 30, 2020