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Conference will honour memory of York Professor

Posted on 21 March 2005

A founder of the University of York's Social Policy Research Unit (SPRU) is to be honoured at a major conference in her memory.

The Cash and Care Conference on 12 and 13 April, 2005, will commemorate the Unit's former director Professor Sally Baldwin, who was killed in a tragic accident in Rome two years ago, at the age of 62.

The event, in Alcuin College at the University of York, will feature the Minister of State for Pensions, Malcolm Wicks, speaking about the contribution that research makes to social policy and practice.

He will be joined by the Chief Executive of the Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC), Ian Diamond, the Government's Chief Social Researcher, Sue Duncan, and a past President of the Association of Directors of Social Services, Andrew Cozens.

The conference will host prominent social policy researchers from the UK and overseas exploring new challenges to society. These include the ways in which traditional assumptions about the respective roles and responsibilities of the Welfare State, families and individuals are being called into question.

Sally Baldwin was a passionate believer in the links between social security policy and community care and the value of rigorous, focussed research in improving policy and practice

Professor Peter Kemp

It will examine the fragmentation of responsibility for welfare between the public and private sector, challenges to the traditional relationship between welfare and paid work and the search for new ways of delivering individualised support as families change in response to demographic and economic pressures.

SPRU's Director Professor Peter Kemp said: "New policy responses are required to tackle these developing social challenges; and these policies need to be underpinned by rigorous research evidence.

"Sally Baldwin was a passionate believer in the links between social security policy and community care and the value of rigorous, focussed research in improving policy and practice. This conference will be a fitting memorial to her."

The conference is sponsored by the Economics and Social Research Council, the Department of Health and the Social Policy Association with whom Sally Baldwin worked for many years.