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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| The experiences of neighbour, volunteer and professional support-givers in supporting community dwelling older people | | Author(s) | Hanna M van Dijk, Jane M Cramm, Anna P Nieboer |
| Journal title | Health and Social Care in the Community, vol 21, no 2, March 2013 |
| Publisher | Wiley, March 2013 |
| Pages | pp 150-158 |
| Source | www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journals/hsc |
| Keywords | Living in the community ; Neighbourhood care ; Neighbour care ; Voluntary workers ; Paid welfare workers ; Interaction [welfare services] ; Coordination ; Netherlands. |
| Annotation | Public policy increasingly emphasises the importance of informal support networks to meet the needs of the ageing population. Evidence for the types of support neighbours provide to older people and how neighbours collaborate with formal support-givers is currently insufficient. The present study explored (i) types of informal neighbour support and (ii) experiences of neighbours, volunteers and professionals providing support. Interviews with nine Dutch neighbour support-givers, five volunteers and 12 professionals were conducted and subjected to latent content analysis. Findings indicate that commitment occurred naturally among neighbours; along with providing instrumental and emotional support, neighbour support seemed to be a matter of carefully `watching over each other'. Neighbour support-givers, however, were often frail themselves and became overburdened; they furthermore lacked support from professionals. Neighbour, volunteer and professional support-givers seemed to operate in distinct, non-collaborative spheres. Findings suggest that policy-makers should consider the opportunities and limitations of neighbour and volunteer support. Professionals have an indispensable role in providing back-up and accountable, specialised support. They may be trained to adopt a visible and proactive attitude in neighbourhoods to facilitate, cooperate with and mediate between neighbour and volunteer support-givers. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-130201207 A |
| Classmark | K4: PQN: P6:SY: QV: QP: QK6: QAJ: 76H |
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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