For Professional Care Workers Week (September 14 to September 18, 2026) the Centre for Care is collaborating with The Care Workers’ Charity and MoneyHelper to host an online event.
This session explores pensions and long-term financial security for care workers. A panel will discuss the barriers preventing care workers from building financial resilience for retirement and the practical steps that can help improve future financial wellbeing.
Date: 18th September 2026
Time: 1pm (BST)
Click here to sign up via Zoom.
Panellists
Janice Cowling
Janice has worked in the pensions industry for nearly 20 years starting with workplace pensions, she then moved on to Automatic Enrolment administration in 2015, before feeling that her skills could be used to help people better understand their pensions, so she moved to MoneyHelper in February 2019. During Janice’s last 7 years at MoneyHelper she has had the privilege to help a lot of people with their pensions using a variety of communication methods.
Professor Liam Foster
Professor Liam Foster is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Social Work at the University of Sheffield, England, who specializes in pensions, extending working lives, gender inequalities and theories of ageing. Professor Foster has developed a national and international profile in ageing and pensions. He has commented on retirement planning in the media, advised unions (TUC), been involved in projects with pension providers (AXA and Prudential) and charities (The Fawcett Society), and has been referenced by political parties (Labour’s Older Women’s Commission) in relation to pensions. He has presented his research at a variety of national and international conferences and has been an invited speaker at the Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education, the European Parliament in Brussels, the House of Lords, and the UN in New York as a world leading expert on ageing. He has authored over 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters and has authored or edited six books. These include methods-based texts.
Olivia Firth
Olivia Firth is the Policy and Projects Manager at The Care Workers’ Charity. Since its launch in September 2024, she has led the Care Worker Advisory Board and Champions Project, now a network of 40 care workers across all four nations. Her role involves creating strategic opportunities for care workers’ voices to be central to discussions and decision making in the sector and working with colleagues across the charity to take projects from idea to delivery.
Olivia holds an undergraduate degree in Human Rights and Social Justice and a Master’s Degree in Human Rights, both from Kingston University, where she specialised in intersectional feminist theory, race and sexuality studies.
She also has a background in care work, in both domiciliary and residential settings. That experience gives her a firsthand understanding of the pressures the sector faces and of how rewarding the work can be. Working alongside care workers, Olivia is committed to ensuring they are valued and treated with dignity and respect.