The project team are very grateful to many individuals and organisations for their invaluable support for this project. First and foremost we are indebted to those individuals who, despite their complex circumstances and often stressful daily lives, spared the time to participate in the citizens panel exercise and to recount difficult experiences to the team. We are hugely grateful for you time, your insights and your ideas about how experiences of energy advice could be improved. We are also very grateful to all those who participated in our Stakeholder Reference Group. This provided a vital sounding board throughout the project and ensured that the project remained sensitive to policy and practice. Thank you for your enthusiasm and for your many excellent ideas about how experiences for hard to reach energy users can be improved. We are also very grateful to Dan Wostenholme and Remi Bec for their support and for facilitating a lively and productive final stakeholder workshop. We also acknowledge the vital financial support provided the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) and for the in-kind support provided to the project by Sheffield Hallam University and Citizens Advice. research will provides important insight into how we must go about engaging with this policy challengehearing the voices of to deliver authentic, practical solutions to benefit all consumers.
This paper explores the disposal strategies of menstrual sanitary products through in-depth semistructured interviews of women aged 18-30 years. There have been many educational campaigns to encourage solid stream waste disposal, however inappropriate disposal and blockages are still a major problem for the water industry. Whilst there have been quantitative studies exploring selfreporting of flushing norms, there is evidence to suggest these results may not take into account the complex set of socio-cultural factors associated with menstrual product disposal. Bridging this gap, our interviews found that although all participants had a desire to responsibly dispose, their ability to utilise solid waste streams or to minimise waste by using reusable products was not always possible because they felt, to some degree, restricted by the wider societal requirements for discretion and the design, accessibility and availability of bins and bathroom facilities. Based on these findings Industry recommendations are suggested.
Employment had risen to historically high levels in Britain before the coronavirus crisis; however, whereas work is traditionally conceptualized as a route out of poverty, this is no longer necessarily the case. Participation in non‐standard or low‐income work such as zero‐hour contracts, involuntary part‐time work and self‐employment is increasingly a feature of the labour market and in‐work benefits which top‐up low incomes have been pared back. This case study undertaken in the period before the coronavirus crisis takes a multi‐disciplinary approach in relation to three key questions: are working women resorting to food bank use in times of financial hardship?; to what extent is this a function of non‐standard working practices?; and is welfare reform a contributing factor? A three‐strand approach is taken: a synthesis of literature, an analysis of national data and in‐depth interviews with stakeholders involved with referrals to or delivery of emergency food provision within northern Britain. The findings highlight a growth in precarious employment models since the 2008/2009 recession and how this intersects with increasing conditionality in welfare policy. We contribute to the debate by arguing that ideological driven policy fails to acknowledge structural deficiencies in labour market demand and misattributes responsibility for managing precarious working patterns onto individuals who are already struggling to get by.
Remaining cognisant of the variety of factors that can render an individual hard to reach and how imposing a definition may preclude the identification of unanticipated p. 60. Focus article -"I have a panic attack when I pick up the phone": experiences of energy advice amongst 'hard to reach' energy users
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