How can a shift in the way we communicate about adult social care help build understanding and win stronger support for investment and reform among the public?
This is the question that a partnership including #SocialCareFuture, Think Local Act Personal, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Service and Local Government Association have been exploring over the past year, with the expert support of Frameworks UK.
Today we are publishing the first fruits of that work, including research findings and advice prepared for us by Maria Castellina from Framework UK ‘How to talk about social care’, and a quick start guide to help communicators to begin to put the insights and recommendations into action. Both are being launched today (26 November 2025) at a session at the National Children’s and Adult Social Services (NCASC) conference in Bournemouth.
This new research and the recommendations flowing from it build upon foundational work led by of #SocialCareFuture to ‘change the narrative’ around adult social care. It points to opportunities to strengthen the story that #SocialCareFuture developed by:
- Placing stronger emphasis on values concerning fairness across incomes and places and on our interconnectedness
- Offering more step-by-step explanation of what social care is and does when working as we’d like it to
- Emphasising solutions using real life examples of social care at its best
- Employing the metaphor of social care acting as ‘glue’, connecting together the things that support us and strengthening our ability to live our lives in the way that we want to.
The partners will be following this up with more detailed guidance, tips and tools, as well as learning opportunities, over the coming weeks and months. On December 8th #SocialCareFuture will host a free webinar to share the research and advice. More details here.
