Care in Comics

Care in the UK is changing, with major reforms such as the proposed National Care Service on the horizon. At a moment like this, research cannot remain only in academic journals, it needs to be shared with the people who shape, deliver, and live with care every day.

Led by Ankita Mishra, PJ Annand, and Lauren White and funded by CIRCLE and Centre for Care (ESRC, NIHR), the Care in Comics project brings together expertise in creative and participatory research, social care and critical disability studies, knowledge exchange, and impact. Along with comics editor and producer, Gabi Putnoki, we are experimenting with new ways of sharing research: working with illustrators to transform studies into comics, and hosting community events where people can read and discuss them collectively. In doing so, we aim to make complex ideas easier to access, and more meaningful to a wider public.

So far, this work has led to four comics, which will be launched (complete with audio versions) very soon:

• Care-experienced graduates: tracing the journeys of young people leaving university without family safety nets, and showing how sudden withdrawal of support, financial pressures, and the “graduate cliff edge” shape their futures.
• Dementia and purposeful walking: examining how walking, often labelled as “wandering,” can be understood instead as a meaningful activity that supports independence and wellbeing, and how care staff can be better supported to work with capacity legislation.
• Care and work: presenting the experiences of unpaid carers who balance employment with caring responsibilities, and highlighting the case for paid leave through research evidence, international comparisons, and testimony shared in Parliament.
• Care in the queer home: exploring how LGBTQ+ people understand and experience “home,” and how housing, support, and social care services can either sustain or undermine identity, belonging, and security.

Together, these comics show how research can be shared in ways that are accessible, emotionally resonant, and relevant to the realities of people’s lives. 

Care in Comics events

• Graphic Novel Reading Room
  • 15th October: 3:30-5:30
  • Book FREE: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1688536651579
  • Showroom Cinema
• Care in Comics at the Festival of Social Sciences
  • 31st October - 2nd November
  • Drop in (no booking necessary)
  • Cadman Room, Millenium Gallery, Surrey Street Sheffield S1 2LH