Views on Public Service Responses to Vulnerability: A Q Methods Approach

• In Event: Conceptualising and applying vulnerability policing: Innovative methodologies and problem-based solutions.

Abstract

The concept of ‘vulnerability’ is increasingly utilised in contemporary social policy, with policing now playing a key role in strategic and street-level mobilisation of the concept in public service provision. However, wider practical impact of notions of vulnerability in social policy are rarely explored. This paper introduces a study which explores views on the operationalisation of vulnerability across public services in the English city of Bradford, with a particular focus on the police as operating within a network of linked public service provision that both creates and responds to vulnerability. The study uses Q methodologies, a mixed method that combines qualitative and quantitative techniques to analyse patterns in human subjectivity. We will outline how the study will explore convergent and divergent views on ‘vulnerability’ from a relatively small but heterogeneous sample of participants. In bringing together the views of both the providers and receivers of core public services in Bradford, we aim to understand more about how the utilisation of vulnerability can be advanced in ways that are most effective for public service provision and most beneficial for vulnerable people.

Authors

• Oznur Yardimci, University of York

• Adam Crawford, University of York

• Kate Brown, University of York

• Chris Devany, University of York

• Tobias Kammersgaard, University of York