Towards a better future for care: impactful events
Fay Benskin and Dan Williamson discuss some of the key recent impact events which the Centre for Care have hosted and/or been involved in.
They reflect on policy breakfasts at the House of Commons which focussed on Carer’s Allowance reform and the evidence in support of Paid Carers Leave, our presence at Party conferences, taking our board game on tour and look to what 2026 has in store for the Centre’s impact work.
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Related links
Click here to read about the Mind the Gap board game.
Click here to learn more about the Policy Breakfast events.
Click here to learn more about our experiences at Party conference in 2025.
Click here to read the Centre for Care’s impact report, launched on 11th February 2026
Click here to explore the Unpaid Care Dashboard.
About our speakers
Fay is the Impact Specialist in the Centre for Care, working with academics and external partners including stakeholders, voluntary sector organisations and policy makers to mobilise research findings to achieve impact beyond academia. Her role is to work with our researchers to plan for impact. Fay identifies partnerships and explores collaborative opportunities to ensure research findings are widely shared, to influence practice and policy.
In 2020, Dan began producing the CARE MATTERS podcast, which features interviews and conversations with experts in the field of social care. The podcast continues to attract audiences from around the world.
Dan created the ‘Mind the Gap’ board game in 2024, developing this idea with award-winning artist Paul Evans for the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2024. The game has since been on tour around England with new versions being developed with colleagues at the University of Sheffield, and in collaboration with national charities.
Dan is currently Digital and Communications Coordinator at the ESRC-funded Centre for Care and continues his work on the CARE MATTERS podcast, as well as producing animations, videos, various other digital outputs and maintaining the Centre for Care website and social media platforms.
