Dr Jo Casebourne is Director of Research at Inclusion. She joined the organisation in November 2006, having worked for over three years at the Institute for Employment Studies. Jo has 11 years of experience in designing, conducting and managing policy research in the field of employment, and has worked on a range of projects examining labour market disadvantage. She is skilled at evaluating programmes and pilots and leading large research consortiums involving a number of partner organisations. Conducting qualitative research, particularly by using innovative methods such as user consultation groups, and participatory methods such as customer journey mapping, is one of Jo’s strengths. Her main areas of specialism are welfare-to-work, lone parents, ethnic minority groups, work-life balance, employment rights, and gender and employment issues.
Since joining Inclusion, Jo has led a number of research projects, including:
- A study of the benefits and employment support schemes designed to meet the needs of people with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, carried out for the National Audit Office
- An employment and skills policy commentary, for the Sector Skills Development Agency
- An examination of what more the government could do to reduce the employment gap between ethnic minorities and the wider population, for the National Audit Office
- An evaluation of Skills Coaching, part of the New Deal for Skills, for the Learning and Skills Council
- A major survey on the impact of further education learning on employability, for the Learning and Skills Council
- A review of the evidence-base for service delivery problems and solutions, particularly benefit delivery, tax credit delivery and employment services, for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- An employer survey that contributed to the work of the Business Commission for Race Equality in the Workplace, for the National Employment Panel
While at the Institute for Employment Studies, Jo managed a range of research projects funded by the Department for Work and Pensions and authored a number of DWP research reports. Her doctoral studies examined welfare-to-work programmes for lone parents in Sheffield and in New York State, USA.
Jo has over a decade of experience in using Atlas.ti qualitative analysis software, along with expertise in designing and managing large-scale surveys and analysing them using SPSS.
