SSCR PhD Student
carolin.hess@kcl.ac.uk
Career to date: Carolin holds a Master’s degree in International Social and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has previously worked as a research assistant at the London Business School, and as a graduate teaching assistant at the University College London and has been involved in several policy-informing research projects around social exclusion and mobility.
She is a part-time Research Fellow in Social Policy at Nottingham Trent University where she supports the external evaluation of the government led “Changing Futures” programme in Nottingham, which delivers frontline and strategic system change work for adults facing severe and multiple disadvantage. As part of her role, she has led on a study on gender-specific and intersectional barriers for women with multiple disadvantage to access appropriate health and housing services in Nottingham on which she will build as part of her PhD.
Host university: King’s College London
Project title: Investigating social care and support for women who face multiple disadvantage and housing exclusion
Project summary: Women with experience of homelessness face severe care and health inequalities, with their average age at death being nearly half that of the general population. Recent research emphasises the compound challenges they face in seeking, accessing and engaging with support services. Despite an increasing evidence base that “one-size-fits-all” services often fail to address the complex and multidimensional nature of homelessness and social exclusion, we know little about how structural and intersectional processes and dynamics impact vulnerable women’s ability to seek, access and accept care and support.
Using ethnographic descriptions, participant observations, and semi-structured interviews of staff and users of services, the PhD thesis uses a critical realist framework to examine a) the role and accessibility of local services and informal support networks for women facing multiple disadvantage including homelessness experiences; b) constraints and facilitators to agency when navigating and possibly exiting homelessness and multiple exclusion for women from diverse groups, and c) how societal, professional and intersectional processes shape opportunities for support and service access and influence women’s capabilities to change their homelessness trajectories.
Working closely with a variety of partners, including homelessness, substance use, health/care services, sex work organisations, and outreach teams in Nottingham the thesis gives an in-depth account on how women experiencing homelessness engage with services, what is effective, and the challenges they face. The thesis aims to provide evidence on how services and the practitioners within them can better support women experiencing homelessness from diverse backgrounds, increasing their capabilities to seek support that is acceptable and effective.
Anticipated completion date: 2026
PhD supervisors: Jess Harris, Annette Boaz, Jill Manthorpe
