Search results for ‘Subject term:"older people"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 9 of 9
Older people shaping policy and practice
- Author:
- OLDER PEOPLE'S STEERING GROUP
- Publisher:
- Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Publication year:
- 2004
- Pagination:
- 86p.
- Place of publication:
- York
Older people are a diverse population; their definitions of "a life worth living" and the support needed to achieve that should be paramount. Much policy and practice are still based on the assumption that older people are a ‘burden’. This is problematic for older people and means that resources fail to deliver their definitions of quality. Despite modernising initiatives, barriers in attitudes, approaches, and resources remain within the way that health and social care services operate.There are also good practices and empowering ways of working. These need to be retained and developed. Care services, however, are only a small part of the support that older people value and only a small part of the experience of growing older. Many older people remain isolated – living in one’s own home with no support or contact can be as disempowering as the stereotype of a nursing home. Older people are citizens with important roles in supporting families and within communities. They are also the biggest providers of support to other older people. Contrary to common perception, there is a great deal of evidence of support within communities but these networks are often hidden and tenuous. Involving older people – individually and collectively. Involvement is both individual (about one’s own life) and collective (about local and national initiatives). However, in current practice most involvement takes the form of set pieces, such as having an individual older person on a Social Services Committee. It is often simply about information-giving or consultations which have little effect in bringing about real change. Meaningful involvement requires standards about when older people are first included, how their involvement is resourced, their involvement throughout the whole process, and their scope to influence the outcomes. Older people can set an agenda for programmes of work about older people. There are examples to build upon of involving older people as commissioners of research, researchers and co-researchers, reference group members, users of research findings and peer reviewers.
Older people shaping policy and practice
- Author:
- JOSEPH ROWNTREE FOUNDATION
- Publisher:
- Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Publication year:
- 2004
- Pagination:
- 4p.
- Place of publication:
- York
Older people are a diverse population; their definitions of "a life worth living" and the support needed to achieve that should be paramount. Much policy and practice are still based on the assumption that older people are a ‘burden’. This is problematic for older people and means that resources fail to deliver their definitions of quality. Despite modernising initiatives, barriers in attitudes, approaches, and resources remain within the way that health and social care services operate.There are also good practices and empowering ways of working. These need to be retained and developed. Care services, however, are only a small part of the support that older people value and only a small part of the experience of growing older. Many older people remain isolated – living in one’s own home with no support or contact can be as disempowering as the stereotype of a nursing home. Older people are citizens with important roles in supporting families and within communities. They are also the biggest providers of support to other older people. Contrary to common perception, there is a great deal of evidence of support within communities but these networks are often hidden and tenuous. Involving older people – individually and collectively. Involvement is both individual (about one’s own life) and collective (about local and national initiatives). However, in current practice most involvement takes the form of set pieces, such as having an individual older person on a Social Services Committee. It is often simply about information-giving or consultations which have little effect in bringing about real change. Meaningful involvement requires standards about when older people are first included, how their involvement is resourced, their involvement throughout the whole process, and their scope to influence the outcomes. Older people can set an agenda for programmes of work about older people. There are examples to build upon of involving older people as commissioners of research, researchers and co-researchers, reference group members, users of research findings and peer reviewers.
From welfare to well-being - planning for an ageing society
- Author:
- JOSEPH ROWNTREE FOUNDATION
- Publisher:
- Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Publication year:
- 2004
- Pagination:
- 4p.
- Place of publication:
- York
Britain has not yet got to grips with the implications of living in an ageing society where, for the first time, older people will outnumber young people. In other countries in Europe, older people are valued and celebrated as an asset to society. In the UK, age discrimination is still built into the fabric of society, and the ageing of the population is often portrayed in negative terms in the media and at a policy level. Britain is still locked into a traditional welfare-rationing approach for people on low incomes, rather than a broader approach that applies to older people across all economic groups as citizens and consumers, and which draws in the private sector as partners. Public services still focus, by and large, on the most vulnerable older people at times of crisis (some fifteen per cent of the older population) rather than adopting an approach which enables the wider older population (the other eighty-five per cent) to remain independent for as long as possible and live their lives to the full. Many older people are still excluded from universal services. Except in Wales, there is no overall government vision and strategy to plan for an ageing society.
Definition, measurement, and correlates of quality of life in nursing homes: toward a reasonable practice, research, and policy agenda
- Author:
- KANE Rosalie
- Journal article citation:
- Gerontologist, 43(Special Issue II), April 2003, pp.28-36.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This article identifies challenges in defining, measuring, and studying quality of life of nursing home residents. A theoretical analysis was conducted based on literature and the author's own large-scale studies of quality of life of nursing home residents. Measuring quality of life is a relatively low priority in nursing homes because of focus on markers of poor quality of care, pervasive sense that nursing homes are powerless to influence quality of life, and impatience with research among those dedicated to culture change. The research argues that the resident voice must be sought in reaching operational definitions for quality of life and as reporters on the quality of their own lives, and that resident burden is a spurious concern that should not deter direct interviews with residents. Five challenges in measuring quality of life were identified: designing questions with appropriate response categories and time frames, developing a sampling strategy, aggregating information at the individual and facility level, validating what are ultimately subjective constructs, and developing an approach using observations and proxies to assess quality of life for approximately the 40% of the residents who will be impossible to interview. Although residents' perceived quality of life is partly a product of their health, social supports, and personalities, nursing homes can directly influence quality of life through their polices, practices, and environments, and, indirectly, through their approaches to family and community. A research agenda is needed, which includes both methodological research and studies of the correlates of quality of life.
Informal care: dilemmas for research, policy and planning and the local level
- Author:
- MILLER Nick
- Journal article citation:
- Research Policy and Planning, 3(1), 1985, pp.25-30.
- Publisher:
- Social Services Research Group
The importance of informal care as a key component of community care is increasingly being appreciated in the fields of research, policy making and planning in the social services. This article reviews some of the characteristics of informal care, with particular reference to recent research on informal care and the elderly. The author draws on his experience of a service review of care for elderly people in a large Shire County to identify some of the issues which confront local authorities in trying to integrate their services with informal networks.
Making the connections: the final report on transport and social exclusion
- Author:
- GREAT BRITAIN. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Social Exclusion Unit
- Publisher:
- Great Britain. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Social Exclusion Unit
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 147p.
- Place of publication:
- London
This report examines the links between social exclusion, transport and the location of services. It is particularly focused on access to those opportunities that have the most impact on life-chances, such as work, learning and healthcare. People may not be able to access services as a result of social exclusion. For example, they may be restricted in their use of transport by low incomes, or because bus routes do not run to the right places. Age and disability can also stop people driving and using public transport. Problems with transport provision and the location of services can reinforce social exclusion. They prevent people from accessing key local services or activities, such as jobs, learning, healthcare, food shopping or leisure. Problems can vary by type of area (for example urban or rural) and for different groups of people, such as disabled people, older people or families with children. The effects of road traffic also disproportionately impact on socially excluded areas and individuals through pedestrian accidents, air pollution, noise and the effect on local communities of busy roads cutting through residential areas.
Growing older in socially deprived areas: social exclusion in later life; summary
- Authors:
- SCHARF Thomas, et al
- Publisher:
- Help the Aged
- Publication year:
- 2002
- Pagination:
- 6p.
- Place of publication:
- London
This summary report calls for urban regeneration, more money for older people and better urban planing and design. The report arises from a project 'Older people in deprived neighbourhoods' developed by a group of researchers based at the Centre for Social Gerontology, Keele University.
Growing older in socially deprived areas: social exclusion in later life
- Authors:
- SCHARF Thomas, et al
- Publisher:
- Help the Aged
- Publication year:
- 2002
- Pagination:
- 124p.
- Place of publication:
- London
This report calls for urban regeneration, more money for older people and better urban planing and design. The report arises from a project 'Older people in deprived neighbourhoods' developed by a group of researchers based at the Centre for Social Gerontology, Keele University.
Human rights: a new language for aging advocacy
- Authors:
- MORGAN Russell E., DAVID Sam
- Journal article citation:
- Gerontologist, 42(4), August 2002, pp.436-442.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This article considers how human rights concepts developed by the international human rights movement could contribute to advocacy efforts on behalf of the aging in an era of population aging. The article evaluated changes in popular perceptions of aging, the concomitant need for a reformulation of aging advocacy, and the role that human rights concepts could play in protecting older persons. It then considered human rights concepts as they are related to the issues of work, retirement security, health care, and long-term care.