In many developing countries there are large numbers of care homes for older people. Until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, they received little attention from policymakers or academics. There is now understandable concern that the pandemic will affect care home residents, as well as staff. Responsibility for care homes is mainly devolved to local governments, and many are looking to develop emergency plans. These need to take account of specific contexts, including scarce resources and very limited regulation of care homes prior to the pandemic. We will partner local government agencies in three countries (Brazil, South Africa and Mexico) to support the development and implementation of emergency plans, and to assess their effects on care homes. Based on consultations with a wider network of policy-makers and experts, we have developed a set of guiding principles (The CIAT Framework). We will work with local governments to put this framework into practice, refine it and assess its potential value for developing countries more generally. At the same time, we will develop an interactive online network with policy-makers and researchers interested in care homes and COVID-19, linked to an existing online policy network we have developed during the pandemic.

This project examines the effects of US immigration policies on asylum-seekers and transit migrants who have been forcibly returned to Mexico and Guatemala as a result of new third country asylum processing agreements. It explores how they and their families experience risk and insecurity during this process, and also how they may develop coping mechanisms to mitigate these stressful situations. Crucially, it investigates the evolving asylum processing and receiving context in Mexico and Guatemala and interrogates claims that these states are 'safe third countries' for asylum-seekers who wish to come to the USA. It draws upon our previous work on the ways in which asylum governance and the infrastructure for humanitarian protection have been sub-contracted to neighbouring states and uses the insights gained from those studies to inform an investigation into the risks faced by asylum-seeking families and deported migrants in Guatemala and Mexico. Our ambition is for this first stage project to feed into and provide a secure basis for a major follow on research programme in Mexico, Guatemala and the neighbouring states. This first-phase study , carried out by the international team, will involve a multi-method approach including (i) desk-based research (combining policy analysis with key informant expert interviews); (ii) a series of rapid assessments involving analysis of crime statistics; observations of living conditions in Mexico and Guatemala; interviews with families sent to 'safe' third countries; and a gender impact study. These research activities will investigate the risks for asylum-seeking and migrant families; how families navigate these asylum and immigration systems and structures; and the impact of return on individuals and families; (iii) participatory arts-based research activities with children and young people living in a migrant shelter to better understand the impact of displacement and separation on them; and (iv) a policy synthesis of what has been learned from 'safe country and off-shore processing asylum systems in other global settings. Outputs from the study will include an advocacy tool-kit developed from the testimonies of asylum-seeking and migrant adults and children; a series of public engagement and policy events to share knowledge and learning from the work; and a proposal for a larger international collaborative body of research on migration and asylum governance across the region.

UK prisons are in crisis: over half of prisoners are functionally illiterate, assaults are at a record high, and reconviction rates remain at around 50%. The severely under-funded Mexican prison system faces yet more urgent problems, such as overcrowding, endemic violence and a severe lack of educational and rehabilitative opportunities for prisoners. There is a lack of funding and support for arts and education projects, even though their benefits are well proven: evidence suggests that prisoners who do not take part in education or training are three times more likely to be re-convicted than those who do. The aim of the Prisoner Publishing project is to develop grassroots writing and book-making programmes in UK and Mexican prisons using cartonera methods - community-based initiatives involving the production of low-cost books from recycled materials - that have emerged from the most challenging Latin American environments. The proposal stems from unforeseen developments across two AHRC projects supported by Global Challenges Research Funding, Precarious Publishing and Activating the Arts for International Development, which together have demonstrated the potential of community publishing workshops to promote multidimensional social and welfare impact in communities facing high levels of precarity, exclusion, stigma and violence. In particular, it builds on the Cartoneras for Peace programme developed in Activating the Arts, which took an unforeseen turn into prison publishing when our project partners in Guadalajara ran the project in Puente Grande, the women's section of Mexico's second-largest prison complex. This programme surpassed all expectations in terms of impact and engagement: the participants reported significant psychological and social benefits; the prison administrators have supported the women to create their own sustainable publishing collective, Bote Cartonero (Cartonera in the Clink); and the initiative received news coverage from the TV station C7 Jalisco. Through close collaboration with a range of project partners and collaborating organisations and our contacts in UK and Mexican prisons (from Prison Governors, Wellbeing teams and Education teams), we will co-design three new writing and publishing programmes to be piloted across 16 prisons (6 in the UK, 10 in Mexico). We will adapt the cartonera publishing model of rapid, low-cost, artisanal publishing to different kinds of prison: women's and men's; mixed category and Category B (short-stay); under-performing and high-performing prisons. This will allow us to develop innovative, creative, and cost-effective programmes that will each produce a cartonera book. The programmes will be replicable beyond the project thanks to a comprehensive Prisoner Publishing Pack available in both Spanish and English, aimed at prison arts practitioners. Designed to be long-lasting, far-reaching, and sustainable, the programmes are expected to produce a significant impact for four principal groups of beneficiaries both within and beyond the life-span of project. Our primary beneficiaries are imprisoned people, especially hard-to-reach prisoners. The programmes will improve functional literacy rates in prisons through collective writing and reading activities, improve participant's self-confidence, help combat mental health problems, increase self-efficacy and agency, and enhance cultural enrichment and quality of life. Second, the programmes are designed to improve the institutional culture of prisons, enhancing their effectiveness as places of rehabilitation. Third, through our public and press engagement activities, the project will change public discourse on prisons and prisoners by promoting the creative and reflective work of participants and combating negative perceptions and stigmatising myths. Finally, the project will facilitate new creative partnerships and knowledge transfer between NGOs, civil society, government and prison authorities.