Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Thompson, Sue

Titel

Promoting Reciprocity in Old Age: A Social Work Challenge

Ist Teil von

• Practice (Birmingham, England), 2016-10, Vol.28 (5), p.341-355

Ort / Verlag

Abingdon: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In the current context of concern about the affordability of eldercare, and the high profile of outcome-focused practice, reducing the need for care can be seen to assume significance. I build on positive links already made between reciprocity and resilience to suggest that the spiritual need to feel valued does not necessarily decrease alongside increasing dependency, but this is not always recognised as key to holistic needs assessment and dignity agendas. Drawing on the meaning-making of service users in the UK and India, and considering these in the context of meaning-making at the level of shared cultural assumptions about old age, I suggest that promoting opportunities for reciprocity can challenge ageist connotations of 'uselessness' by highlighting that even very frail and dependent older people can give as well as receive, and by being better able to thrive spiritually as a consequence, may become more resilient and less dependent on support services. Furthermore, I suggest that social work professionals are well placed to keep reciprocity on research and practice agendas by championing sociological and service-user perspectives on the importance of reciprocity in the lives of the significantly dependent older people with whom they work.