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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The space of family care-giving in Australian aged care facilities
— implications for social work | | Author(s) | Maree Petersen, Jill Wilson, Olivia Wright |
| Journal title | British Journal of Social Work, vol 46, no 1, January 2016 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, January 2016 |
| Pages | pp 81-97 |
| Source | www.bjsw.oxfordjournals.org |
| Keywords | Family care ; Care homes ; Social work ; Space needs ; Indicators ; Australia. |
| Annotation | While the importance of involving families in care provision in residential care facilities is recognised, how to achieve an inclusive care space that balances the needs of families, residents, staff and the sector's regulatory requirements remains problematic for social work and the aged care sector. In this paper, a spatial perspective is used to examine the role of family carers in residential care facilities in Australia. Information obtained from focus groups with families, naturalistic interviews with staff and families, and observations of mealtimes in one case study site is analysed thematically to demonstrate how the physical, social and symbolic meanings of space interact to produce or impede family care-giving. The findings provide important guidelines for social work in this setting, suggesting practice at micro, mezzo and macro levels. These include the acknowledgement of families in care-giving, genuine partnerships between staff and families, and family-inclusive policies within facilities. In addition, this paper highlights how the social work profession and the residential care sector more generally can strengthen their person-centred focus, engage with families, and lessen the marginalisation of families in care-giving. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-160212201 A |
| Classmark | P6:SJ: KW: IG: R5: 3RI: 7YA |
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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