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Transforming practice with older people through an ethic of care
- Authors:
- WARD Lizzie, BARNES Marian
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 46(4), 2016, pp.906-922.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This article explores the relevance of deliberative practices framed by feminist care ethics to social work practice with older people. It draws on two connected projects which brought together older people: practitioners and academics. The first was a participatory research project in which the significance of care to well-being in old age emerged. The second was a knowledge exchange project which generated learning resources for social care practice based on the research findings of the first project. The authors analyse selected transcripts of recordings from meetings of both projects to consider the ways that discussions about lived experiences and everyday lives demonstrate care through this dialogue. Using this analysis, the authors propose that care ethics can be useful in transforming relationships between older people and those working with them through the creation of hybrid spaces in which ‘care-full deliberation’ can happen. It is argued that such reflective spaces can enable transformative dialogue about care and its importance to older people and offer a counterbalance to the procedurally driven environments in which much social work practice takes place and can support practice more attuned to the circumstances and concerns of older people. (Edited publisher abstract)
Being well enough in old age
- Authors:
- BARNES Marian, TAYLOR David, WARD Lizzie
- Journal article citation:
- Critical Social Policy, 33(3), 2013, pp.473-493.
- Publisher:
- Sage
This article offers a critique of the dominant ways in which well-being has been conceptualized and researched within social policy, focusing in particular on the significance of this for policy relating to older people. It conceptualizes well-being as relational and generative rather than an individual outcome. Normative notions of independence, autonomy and consumerism at the heart of policy on well-being and ageing are critically explored and it is suggested that indexes of older people’s happiness conceal more than they reveal. This theoretical approach is illustrated with empirical material from a participatory study in which older people were co-producers of knowledge about what well-being means and how it can be produced. Working with older people as co-researchers it was found that keeping well in old age involves demanding emotional and organizational labour both for older people and for family and friends. The need for ethical and relational sensibilities at the heart of policy on well-being and ageing is suggested. (Edited publisher abstract)
Older people, well-being and participation
- Authors:
- BARNES Marian, WARD Lizzie, GAHAGAN Beatrice
- Journal article citation:
- Generations Review, 22(2), April 2012, Online only
- Publisher:
- British Society of Gerontology
The University of Brighton and Age Concern, Brighton, Hove and Portslade have been working on participatory research with older people since 2007. Their latest project investigates the experiences of older people in relation to well-being. They have also received ESRC Follow on Funding to apply learning from this project, and from their experiences of working with older people as co-researchers, to develop learning resources for older people's involvement. This article briefly describes what the researchers have learnt from their research into well-being and how the findings will be applied.
‘Paying our own way’: application of the capability approach to explore older people’s experiences of self-funding social care
- Authors:
- TANNER Denise, WARD Lizzie, RAY Mo
- Journal article citation:
- Critical Social Policy, 38(2), 2018, pp.262-282.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Adult social care policy in England is premised on the concept of personalisation that purports to place individuals in control of the services they receive through market-based mechanisms of support, such as direct payments and personal budgets. However, the demographic context of an ageing population and the economic and political context of austerity have endorsed further rationing of resources. Increasing numbers of people now pay for their own social care because either they do not meet tight eligibility criteria for access to services and/or their financial means place them above the threshold for local authority-funded care. The majority of self-funders are older people. Older people with complex and changing needs are particularly likely to experience difficulties in fulfilling the role of informed, proactive and skilled navigators of the care market. Based on individual interviews with older people funding their own care, this article uses a relational-political interpretation (Deneulin, 2011) of the capability approach (CA) to analyse shortfalls between the policy rhetoric of choice and control and the lived experience of self-funding. Whilst CA, like personalisation, is seen as reflecting neo-liberal values, we argue that, in its relational-political form, it has the potential to expose the fallacious assumptions on which self-funding policies are founded and to offer a more nuanced understanding of older people’s experiences. (Edited publisher abstract)
Crossing the divide between theory and practice: research and an ethic of care
- Authors:
- WARD Lizzie, GAHAGAN Beatrice
- Journal article citation:
- Ethics and Social Welfare, 4(2), July 2010, pp.210-216.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Abingdon
This article reflects on how an ethic of care framework, based on interconnected principles of attentiveness, responsibility, competence, responsiveness and trust can be applied to develop research practice. It highlights a research partnership between a voluntary-sector organisation for older people and a university research centre. The focus is a participatory research project on older people and well-being in which older volunteers were involved as co-researchers. The shared values of the voluntary-sector organisation’s culture of practice and the participatory approach of the university researchers have enabled joint research projects to be developed within an ethic of care framework. The model aimed to remove the barriers between expert and lay knowledge and encouraged the mutual recognition, sharing and validating of different areas of expertise. An ethic of care framework offers context-specific ways of understanding and responding to the ethical challenges of undertaking participatory research, and to the relational aspects of well-being identified by older people during the course of the work.