Help for a new latecomer please

[Freudianslip1]

To summarize: I'm 40 with 3dc who all have the same SEN and have required a lot of care. I did a PT degree through OU whilst at home with them, just finishing a p/t masters in social science/law area and now need some type of employment as the youngest is in school. I have a fair amount of voluntary work but no paid employment on my CV at all. I need something very flexible as I have a lot of hospital appointments to attend so a 9-5 job is out of the question.

Q1. Are there any PT research type posts out there? What are my options (if any) within academia?

Q2. I would love to start some sort of writing, but don't have any of my own research obviously. Is there any scope for me at this point or do you need to be at least Phd level?

Any help/advice appreciated, obviously I could ask my previous supervisor but I don't want to look like a fool if my above questions are too ambitious.

Q1 - there can be p/t jobs but not often. look on jobs.ac.uk to get a feel for what exists.

Q2 - what do you want to write? do you want to get paid for it? who is going to read it? if you are writing for a non-academic audience, you can obviously just sit down & write. but if you want to write for an academic journal, it will be much easier with the help of a supervisor.

but do contact your previous supervisor. these are exactly the kind of questions they can answer.

Thanks for the reply @parietal. Re writing; yes sorry I mean related to my field, pay isn't very important, just something that might make me look a bit more credible.