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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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A natural locally-based networking approach for singleton disabled elderly
— implementation and case illustration | | Author(s) | Yip Kam-shing, Law Sung-on |
| Journal title | British Journal of Social Work, vol 32, no 8, December 2002 |
| Pages | pp 1037-1050 |
| Source | http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org |
| Keywords | Physical disabilities ; Living alone ; Social contacts ; Visiting ; Neighbourhoods, communities etc ; Case studies ; Hong Kong. |
| Annotation | Within such business-orientated and competitive lifestyles as Hong Kong's, older people often have poor social support and social networks; many are single and lead lonely lives. From 1991 to 2000, the Good Neighbour Centre of the United Christian Nethersole Community Health Service in Hong Kong implemented a natural locality-based supportive networking approach for disabled single older people. As part of this approach, various psychosocial interventions were developed to strengthen mutual support among neighbours, able-bodied older people, outpatients suffering from mental illness, and volunteers who were matched and integrated with the disabled single older person to form a locality-based naturally supporting community. Different stages of development are identified: network assessment, network matching, network formation, and network strengthening. The concepts of stable and mutual support, mutual development and mutual concern were stressed. Feedback from stakeholders was encouraging and the demonstrated improvement in functional and psychosocial well-being was impressive and clear. Also, according to the principles of the strengths perspective, the approach was strength oriented, that is, it cultivated the potential strengths within in a locally-based community, challenging the care and concern of members in the community through the loneliness of the single older person, developing mutual support, and nurturing new supportive resources within a locally-based community. Further research may help to consolidate the effectiveness of this approach through new strategies. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060313204 A |
| Classmark | BN: K8: TOA: NP: RH: 69P: 7DR |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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