Women as parents, workers, carers and survivors: A research design to explore lives and share support

This paper situates the lives and work of parents who care for children with ongoing health conditions and disabilities — and who also work full time — within the context of their workplace. Caring responsibilities of parents, especially mothers, are underscored. Interruptions to the working day may be required due to various professional and medical consultations, hospitalisations or treatment regimens. Australian Bureau of Statistics reports support the claim that the prevalence of this problem makes it of import to working carers, their families and, ultimately, the organisations where they may be employed. While there have been other studies concerned with the crossover between family responsibilities and work, there have been no phenomenological investigations that focus on this problem from the perspective of the full time working carers of children with chronic illness and/or disability, especially when their work environment is increasingly being characterised as hostile or abusive. The paper [...]