Communities of Care

Communities of Care: An International Journal of Transdisciplinary Relational Practice is a peer-reviewed, open access international journal hosted by the School of Childhood and Social Care, University of East London, on behalf of the UEL Health Campus and our partner organisations.

Aims

Communities of Care is published once a year (winter) and offers a collaborative and creative space to explore, document and discuss relational practice in community settings. The journal is a partnership between the university and local and national public, private and third-sector organisations drawn from our local east London community.

Communities of Care explores themes and issues of relational practice that are both local and broad in scope, offering a lens on both east London communities and wider, national and international debates. As such the journal is both local and global - (g)local - and its published content seeks to explore practice at all levels. As a transdisciplinary journal we invite submissions which document, consider, question, seek to understand, define and re-define relational practice in the widest sense.

Scope

The Editors welcome submissions which engage in informed conversations about community and care — including those which explore ideas and expressions of community, care and relational practice in different (g)local contexts. These could include social work, community and youth work, public and allied health, psychology, counselling and psychotherapy, education, law and human rights, charity work and activism.

Submissions would privilege the voice from and of communities themselves. Authors might represent charities, third sector groups, public or private funded interests, government, pressure and interest groups, faith groups, community groups or voluntary sector organisations and colleagues. Submissions could be written with the lens and voice of those providing and/or receiving ‘care’ and/or collaborating with others to create the ‘communities of care’.

While the journal is collaboratively led, managed and ‘located’ in the wider east London context with a particular focus on the London Borough of Newham, we recognise nonetheless the international stage that relational collaborations operate on. The issues, challenges, collaborations and successes of communities in our locale seem both timely and relevant to other national and international contexts. We wish, therefore, to represent submissions from as wide a range of contexts, sectors and geographical locations as possible.

Publication frequency
One issue per year — winter

Subject:
Relational Practice

Publisher:
School of Childhood and Social Care, University of East London, on behalf of the UEL Health Campus

Contact us

General inquiries, questions and article submissions can be sent to the journal editors at: communitiesofcare@uel.ac.uk

Access

Open Access (peer reviewed)

Subject

We encourage submissions which offer current, considered and timely examples of inclusive, engaged practice grounded in principles of kindness, respect, and justice. By ‘Communities of Care’ we mean that this journal positions the ethic of care and relational practice at its core, recognising them as vital frameworks for challenging power imbalances and illuminating lived experiences of disparity embedded within social structures.

By foregrounding human connection, collective agency, and compassionate engagement, the journal seeks to create a dynamic space where knowledge is co-constructed, and care becomes a transformative tool for equity and justice. Through this focus, we champion connections that reimagine community practice as inherently relational, ethical, and socially accountable.

Relational practice is used widely across a range of disciplines including health, social care, education, youth work and related fields. The importance of relationships, connecting and being with others is broadly recognised as crucial for positive health, wellbeing and learning. However, practitioners, academics, policy makers and those with lived experience have not yet articulated a shared understanding of relational practice.
We see this journal as contributing to the professional lives of academics and practitioners from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds. The journal is intended to contribute to the following fields:

Social work
Community & youth work
Public & allied health
Psychology & counselling
Psychotherapy
Education
Law & Human Rights
Activism
Charity work

Given the wide scope of ‘relational practice’, our journal proposes to capture meaningful value in the art of interaction, relational dialogues and community trust in the lived moment to highlight knowledge sharing as a meaning-making asset both in research and professional community practice. The concept of relational practice as sustainable practice encourages the exploration of relationships with and to others and our environments, engaging the whole person, organisation and community.

Types of submissions

We value and celebrate a rich variety of types and styles of submission, true to, and encouraging, a diversity of author identities and practices. We would also like to work with potential (first-time) authors to support submissions as well as operating a peer review model.

TYPE	FORMAT	WORD COUNT
Articles	Full research articles	3,000–4,000 words
Insights	Reflections & opinion (incl. interviews, stories, narratives, artwork)	2,000 words
Updates	Project overviews — ongoing, new, or ending	1,000 words

The Editors and Editorial Board are keen that the Insights and Updates sections provide a space for ‘non-traditional’ journal formats — for example, interviews, stories, narratives, photo montages, and images of artwork. We aim to work with authors who wish to submit these pieces to ensure they are authentic for both sides: the author’s intentions and the format, aims and requirements of the journal.

We are interested to receive submissions that:

Explore new research practices
Recount and evaluate community partnership events and practices
Provide a timely critique of social policy initiatives
Document the outcomes of partnership working
Develop cross-sector accounts of social practices
Amplify the many voices of marginalised and underrepresented communities
Provide authentic accounts of personal stories and lived experience

References

Haigh, R., Benfield, N. (2023). ‘The Development of a Relational Practice Movement’. In: Boden-Stuart, Z., Larkin, M. (eds) Relationships and Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Lamph G, et al. (2023). ‘Relational practice in health, education, criminal justice, and social care: a scoping review.’ Syst Rev 12, 194.
Griswold, W. (2017). Sustainability, Ecojustice, and Adult Education. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2017: 7–15.
Gergen, K.J. (2011). Relational being: beyond self and community. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bell, K. (2021). ‘Increasing undergraduate student satisfaction in Higher Education: the importance of relational pedagogy’. Journal of Further and Higher Education.
Marshall, J. (2017). Contemporary Debates in Education Studies. London: Taylor & Francis Group.
Persky, J. (2021). ‘Higher Education and the Ethic of Care’. Cultural Studies, Critical Methodologies, 21(3), pp. 301–305.
Gravett, K., et al. (2024). Relational pedagogies as pedagogies of connections and mattering

Disclaimer

The University of East London (UEL) and the School of Childhood and Social Care (SCSC) make every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “content”) contained in this publication. However, it, or any of its agents and licensors, makes no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the content and denies all such representations and warranties, whether express or implied, to the maximum extent permitted by law. Any views expressed in this publication are the views of the authors and are not the views of UEL and SCSC nor the Editorial Board.

Editors

Co-Joint-Editors-in-Chief

Dr Yeşim Deveci, UEL, Department of Social Work, Counselling and Social Care — Y.Deveci@uel.ac.uk
Katie Ketcher-Room, UEL, Department of Education — K.L.Ketcher@uel.ac.uk
Dr Warren Kidd, UEL, Department of Education — w.kidd@uel.ac.uk

Deputy Editors

Anna Caffrey, UEL, Department of Allied and Public Health
Dr Elizabeth Walters, UEL, Department of Allied and Public Health
Dr Paul Watts, UEL, Department of Allied and Public Health

Production Editor – pre and post production

Lindy Zubairy, UEL, Department of Education, School of Childhood and Social Care

Editorial Board

Dr Amina Adnan, UEL, Department of Social Work, Counselling and Social Care
Dr Kate Allen, UEL, RIX Inclusive Research, purpleSTARS
Teyah Brathwaite, Race Equality Foundation
Dr Gabriella Buttarazzi, UEL, Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching
Robert Cleary, Newham Learning and Sandringham Primary School
Ciro Genovese, UEL, Department of Education
David Kay, Independent
Dr Penelope Mendonça, Independent
Dr June O'Sullivan, London Institute of Early Years
Akeema Paul, UEL, Department of Allied and Public Health, UK Health Security Agency
Dr Matilda Pye, Independent
Kamilah Tomlinson, UEL, Community Counselling Service
Allison Vitalis, UEL, Department of Psychology
Professor Rachel Wicaksono, UEL, School of Childhood & Social Care

Community Advisors

Nahim Ahmed MBE, Poplar HARCA – Spotlight
Neil Leitch, Early Years Alliance

Contact the journal

General enquiries, questions and article submissions can be sent to the journal editors at: communitiesofcare@uel.ac.uk

Partnership working
Explore how partnership working, knowledge exchange and epistemic justice can create more equitable ways of sharing knowledge across academia and communities.
Publication Policy
This journal explores partnership working, knowledge exchange, and social and epistemic justice, creating a collaborative space where academic, community and lived experience knowledge can be shared, valued and developed.
Guidelines for Authors
What you need to know before you submit to our journal