With just one month left until the celebration of our 5th Academic Conference supported by the Social Trends Institute, we would like to inform you of how it will finally be carried out, taking into account the difficulties that COVID-19 has imposed on us.

A perspective from Poland. We are delighted that our report has now been translated into Polish, with the significant contributions of “voices” from Poland, including an introduction by Barbara Socha, Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy.

2020 has seen HRF rising to the challenge of COVID19 and the implications for our lives and homes. Look here at our 2019 Directors' Report to find more details of our many other activities and events over the last 12 months. Our commitment to build a research-base on the study of the work of the home, to champion recognition of the value of this work and to support homemakers, has never been more vital nor more timely.

It would be hard to find a more important time for the publication of "People, Care and Work in the Home", our second book.

Responding to the coronavirus in relation to the Home, we have produced a Communication Report in which different personalities share their experience of what home is - and means - to them during this time of a pandemic.

During this period of lockdown the internet has been buzzing with the activities that people have found helpful, therapeutic, or at least a welcome distraction at this time

One of the emerging themes of the current crisis is the awareness of a previous undervaluing of carers. As one carer has put it, “We have gone from ‘low-skilled’ workers to ‘key’ workers in less than a month – but our jobs remain the same, caring for the most vulnerable in our society.”

In this article, Baroness Hollins talks about disability and autism in Coronavirus Time. "Having someone with an intellectual disability or an autistic child at home during coronavirus is a real blessing and an invitation to spend our days more mindfully but creating a new shared rhythm may take families like mine a little longer."

There are few professions, jobs or activities that are now possible to carry out without using the internet. The current coronavirus crisis and the instructions to self-isolate have even more powerfully underlined this.

A prestigious group of academics will be contributing to our 5th Interdisciplinary and International Academic Conference, as keynotes, academics in dialogue and as round tables experts.