In the last two decades “ageing in place” has become a paradigm of action in dealing with older people needs. This approach inspired different social care policies, programs, and projects around the world. Homes became the place where to provide services to fragile elderly people, instead of moving them to other care settings to tackle their needs. Literature shows that this shift is keen with peoples’ desires and aspirations as most of us want to stay at home till the end of our lives. In some contexts, supporting ageing in place meant a pluralization of available services and the widening of choice expression by users. In others, it didn’t produce any relevant change in the local welfare system. Most innovation in this field is related to the reorganization or the integration of existing home-based services. Less has been done to reach people that don’t ask for help even if they are fragile, living in solitude or lacking informal networks, etc., people which needs remain latent and are not transformed into demands. There is evidence that these groups are growing, especially in contexts that rely extensively on the presence of family members to signal needs and to enact the delivery of helps and supports. People stay often at home alone, without companionship, and not monitored, even when they face difficulties in coping ageing limitations in everyday life. Their specific needs are not addressed because they remain “invisible”. For this reason, it is of paramount importance that local welfare systems engage in “sewing the territory” and “hooking” their potential users, before and regardless that they ask for help. In other words, “if the mountain won't come to Muhammad then Muhammad must go to the mountain”… For the elderly this is an approach that can enrich and foster their quality of life, bringing for example those who are isolated back to the world. It can also be the basis to develop prevention measures and actions that, in turn, can support better ageing in place processes. In this paper, I will discuss some key issues related to the hooking welfare approach for older people, and I will discuss how it has been implemented in different public and private projects, programs, and policies in Italy in the last five years, based on case studies on innovative ageing in place policies based on domiciliary services.

If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain. “Hooking” the elderly to support their ageing in place

G. Costa
2021-01-01

Abstract

In the last two decades “ageing in place” has become a paradigm of action in dealing with older people needs. This approach inspired different social care policies, programs, and projects around the world. Homes became the place where to provide services to fragile elderly people, instead of moving them to other care settings to tackle their needs. Literature shows that this shift is keen with peoples’ desires and aspirations as most of us want to stay at home till the end of our lives. In some contexts, supporting ageing in place meant a pluralization of available services and the widening of choice expression by users. In others, it didn’t produce any relevant change in the local welfare system. Most innovation in this field is related to the reorganization or the integration of existing home-based services. Less has been done to reach people that don’t ask for help even if they are fragile, living in solitude or lacking informal networks, etc., people which needs remain latent and are not transformed into demands. There is evidence that these groups are growing, especially in contexts that rely extensively on the presence of family members to signal needs and to enact the delivery of helps and supports. People stay often at home alone, without companionship, and not monitored, even when they face difficulties in coping ageing limitations in everyday life. Their specific needs are not addressed because they remain “invisible”. For this reason, it is of paramount importance that local welfare systems engage in “sewing the territory” and “hooking” their potential users, before and regardless that they ask for help. In other words, “if the mountain won't come to Muhammad then Muhammad must go to the mountain”… For the elderly this is an approach that can enrich and foster their quality of life, bringing for example those who are isolated back to the world. It can also be the basis to develop prevention measures and actions that, in turn, can support better ageing in place processes. In this paper, I will discuss some key issues related to the hooking welfare approach for older people, and I will discuss how it has been implemented in different public and private projects, programs, and policies in Italy in the last five years, based on case studies on innovative ageing in place policies based on domiciliary services.
2021
ageing in place
policies
isolation in old age
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/1184734
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