Dr Harriet Clarke

Tuesday 9.30-11

Thursday 3.00-4.30

• MSc in Person-Centred and Experiential Psychotherapy, University of Staffordshire, 2023.
• PhD on ‘Attitudes and Behaviour to funding care in “old age”’, University of Leicester, 2004
• BA in Psychology and Sociology, University of Sheffield, 1992

Harriet has worked at the University of Birmingham since 2001. She previously worked at the University of Leicester as a researcher (on public attitudes to care funding, access to social care, and disabled parent’s experiences of family life). Her early years at Birmingham included teaching psychology and research methods to social work students. She also became involved in delivering on social policy, sociology and criminology programmes and in wider social research education which are central to her work today. In 2019, Harriet began a four-year part-time MSc in Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy building on her existing commitment to considering the relationship between psy- disicplines and social practices and policy.

Education and research are strongly intertwined in terms of Harriet’s teaching practice. Previously, Harriet was the Director of Doctoral Research for the School (2010-2015) and was the School Head of Education (2017-2020). Harriet has often been engaged in teaching and research that crosses disciplinary boundaries. Working in a department which provides both single honours and joint honours / cross-disciplinary degrees, she is interested in enabling students to navigate their disciplinary (or multiple disciplinary) identities as they develop their academic sense of who they are and how they wish to develop.

Harriet’s longstanding research interests include disability, family life, welfare discourse, and social attitudes. Her current work expands beyond humans in society and through the internal University of Birmingham funding, she has been able to progress work on well-being interventions and services that include non-human animals (such as care farms/community farms and equine-assisted services).

Undergraduate teaching: 

• Social Problems and Social Policy Social Science in Action (Part 1 and Part 2)
• Dissertation Supervision
• Tutoring 

Postgraduate teaching: 

• Researching Disability
• Climate Justice and Social Policy
• Dissertation Supervision

Harriet currently lead-supervises research relevant to the following themes:

• Everyday experiences of disability
• Disabled people’s working lives

Harriet is interested in supervising work in the above domains, and also in relation to:

• Human/non-human animal interactions and welfare/wellbeing
• Psychotherapy and social policy

Harriet also provides co-supervisor support for qualitative and mixed-methods PhD research.

PhD title

Attitudes and Behaviour Towards Financial Planning for Care in ‘Old Age’ 

Harriet is currently the convenor of the Health and Wellbeing Research Theme in the School of Social Policy. 

Harriet’s own frame for engaging with health and wellbeing as a global topic (relevant to a range of different disciplines, places, and forms of policy and practice) is represented through the ‘One Welfare’ (and also the ‘One Health’) approach. This represents human and non-human wellbeing as interlinked and indicates the value of an ecological – and interspecies – approach in social policy and across the wider social sciences. 

‘Bringing the Animals In’: Non-human animals and social policy relevant enquiry 

Harriet’s current work has been supported by internal university funding (Research Better Together, which is the University of Birmingham working in collaboration with the Birmingham Voluntary Service Council, and funds from within the College of Social Sciences). 

In 2024, as part of the Research Better Together funding, she worked with Balsall Heath City Farm, conducting interviews with volunteers and visitors about their experiences of the site and what those experiences mean for them. This is to both inform Balsall Heath City Farm’s knowledge base about the City Farm today, and to help inform future research work in this domain. 

With funding from the Birmingham Business School and from the School of Social Policy, work on human-non-human animal welfare has recently been extended to also explore the work of equine-based services (horses working with humans to deliver potential well-being outcomes to people). This work also concerns equine-assisted services, equine-facilitated learning, riding-based interventions (including Riding for the Disabled Association) and leisure-based activities. 

Previous Research Work 

The following are external funding awards received whilst employed at the University of Birmingham: 

British Academy:  ‘Autonomy, interdependence, and social security: an integrated study of disability benefit entitlement and family life’ (with F. Carmichael, PI, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham) 2015-17. 

Thomas Pocklington Trust, RNIB and Sense:  ‘Experiences of Personal Independence Payments for People with Sensory Loss’ (with G. Douglas, PI, School of Education, University of Birmingham) 2014-5.  

NIHR School for Social Care Research: ‘Can family focused approaches contribute to the reablement of people with mental health problems’ (with J. Tew, PI, School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham) 2011-2012.     

AHRC: Connected Health and Social Care Communities (with Mervyn Conroy, PI, University of Cumbria and Lynne Wilson, INLOGOV, University of Birmingham) 2011. 

Commission for Social Care Inspection: ‘Supporting disabled parents and parents with additional needs: a family or fragmented approach’ (lead consultant and external project manager, working with Nathan Hughes and Rosemary Littlechild, University of Birmingham) 2008. 

Department for Work and Pensions/Office of Disability Issues: ‘Disability and family formation (with Professor Stephen McKay, PI, University of Birmingham) 2008. 

ESRC: ‘Disabled parents, the way forward’ (convened ESRC Funded Seminar Series) 2006-2008.