DEMOS

Wednesday 21st March 2007, 9am-2pm

10 Upper Bank Street, London, E14 5JJ

Kindly supported by Clifford Chance

Demos is holding a major conference on The Business of Care, to launch its new Families and Care research programme. Cherie Booth QC will give the keynote address.

There are a few places left. If you would like to come contact Peter Harrington on 020 7367 6338 or careconference@demos.co.uk. Attendance is free.

The focus of the conference will be the changing nature of care across society: from who provides it, to how we pay for and find time for it.
It will explore how, as a society, we can move from away deficit model of care – and what the implications of this are for workplaces, families and public services.

So how can care be about more than families and social care budgets? What does it mean in an increasingly individualistic and networked society? How can we understand the interaction between moral obligations of care, love, happiness and justice? How do we shift notions of care from dependence and independence to interdependence? And how can we measure the value of care?

Three panels of speakers will tackle these questions from different
perspectives:

Care ecologies:
Neil Churchill from Age concern and Caroline Tomlinson from In Control discuss notions of interdependence, choice and power and ask who will be the caregivers of the future

Re-valuing care:
Duncan Fisher from Fathers Direct and Penny Mansfield from One plus one discuss the value of care to families
 
Politics of care:
Charlie Leadbeater and Jane Lewis consider the policy implications and ask who should carry the cost of caring

Keynote address:
The conference will conclude with a keynote form Cherie Booth QC that sets these issues in a global context and addresses the issue of immigrant women workers in this new economy.

Demos has been long associated with ideas around freedom, responsibility and individualism; the tension between public value and social obligation; gender equality and the parenting deficit and preventative rather than reactive policies. This conference will bring together policymakers, academics, practitioners and opinion formers to debate these ideas and more.