Commissioning groupwork for carers

This small-scale qualitative study, involving commissioners of carers' services, contextualized in academic and other literature, adds to an understanding of groupwork for carers within the context of an English legal framework. Five commissioners, from different parts of England, participated in an online focus group. The dataset was analyzed thematically using a reflexive Thematic Analysis approach. Three themes were developed from the data. One theme indicated that differing understandings of the purpose of group activities for carers co-existed in each area and another that system-wide blocks meant that the choice of provider depends on factors like ability to risk-manage the contract value rather than skills needed to serve whole populations. This led to a third theme of commissioners attempting to “engineer” the development of successful groupwork. The findings suggest that Community Social Work is likely to be successful in working with carers but may face challenges within a quasi-market approach.