EAPEssex Autonomy Project

This year issues of risk have loomed larger than ever across every sector of civil society. The pandemic has meant that we’ve all had to be especially vigilant about – and more ingenious than ever in negotiating – the risks that pervade our private and professional lives. In our 11th Annual EAP Summer School we highlighted and explored the role risk plays across a number of legal and care contexts. Among other things, we explored the following topics: risk work and the relative advantages of formal and post-formal approaches to risk assessment in care settings; the role of risk in mental capacity assessment and how that role is moderated by the severity of the risks involved; the place of risk in Mental Health Policy and psychiatric decision making; the precautionary principle and what it means for people who do frontline risk work; the wider background conditions that shape which risks feature in our decision making and which get ignored. As always, our presenters came from a variety of backgrounds – e.g., law, philosophy, sociology, psychiatry, and more – and we will foster interdisciplinary problem-focused conversations with a diverse group of academics, lawyers, psychiatrists, frontline care workers, and other professionals with a stake in these issues.