The Socrates Café: Community Philosophy as an empowering tool in a day care centre for older people (original) (raw)
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Learning for Older People within the Community
Australasian Journal on Ageing, 1991
There is much discussion in education circles in Australia about the impact of the aging of society. Not much of this discussion, however, has made its way past political rhetoric to the more productive world of political policy and programs. Healthy older people are still largely left to their own devices to develop educational responses to their needs - the highly successful University of the Third Age movement being a case in point. Organizations that try to provide creative alternatives for the older learner are still treated as though that work is not real work. Changes in society suggest not only that community members will be older on average in the future, but that they will be thrown more and more onto their own resources in order to survive. Such a situation requires more than political pleasantries. It requires active intervention to provide new curricula and new directions. We explore the reality of learning for the older person in Australia and suggest policy directions for the future.
Reclaiming the community potential to improve the lives of older citizens
Research on Ageing and Social Policy
This article reports the results of a case study in southern Portugal, in a community where ageing related processes seem to be speeding in the last decades. In this case study we used non-structured interviews to an extensive set of social actors, but also biographical interviews. Our main aim was to understand the contradictions and challenges posed by the ageing processes, and the way those processes affect the daily lives of people of the community, looking closely to the older adults’ situation. In Portugal, the mainstream social policy is creating the conditions for an increasing institutionalisation of older citizens. Not denying the fact that in later life such social support is fundamental, we point out the disadvantages that such institutionalisation brings to older adults. We also try show the importance of community, especially for the elderly. We argue that today it is crucial to regain the community potential to improve the quality of life of older adults.
Become elderly is could be a reason for exclusion from social networks for change of status, role and identity related to age. Faced with the emergence of new needs, welfare fails to support inclusive processes and requires an intervention of community activation, so it is possible to create welcoming and dialogic social contexts. The pedagogy can rely of animation as a mobilizer of social contexts, awakening the bottom-up approach, to promote places and times of intergenerational dialogue, to build more cohesive societies in which the bonds of trust and proximity to enable citizens to engage in the construction of a common good, oriented to support people and communities. The presentation of a practice carried out on the national context helps us to understand how intergenerational dialogue can be a vehicle of interaction for open and hospitable community. Trigger, facilitate and support the relational dynamics aimed to knowledge, experimentation and sharing of experiences in which learning is mutual, may deepen the sense of personal and community projectuality, implementing reflective paths to highlight the characteristics of a successful daily practices. Elderly and young people in dialogue, therefore, can create meaningful connections and relational movements able to re-create the sense of community, understanding and experimenting new ways of living in an inclusive territory.
International Journal of Lifelong Education
This study analyses what motivates older people to attend 'day centres' in Malta and what they believe that they derive from young people who carry out their placements at these day 'centres' These young people, who are aged 16-17, attend a vocational college in Malta and are studying health and social care. The study is based on a qualitative approach and employs the usage of focus groups. The main indings are that the elderly see the students as helping them on an emotional level by giving them encouragement, and on a practical level, by ofering them insights that help them in modern-day life.
Social inclusion through ageing-in-place with care?
Ageing and Society, 2011
ABSTRACTThe onset of ill-health and frailty in later life, within the context of the policy of ageing-in-place, is increasingly being responded to through the provision of home care. In the philosophy of ageing-in-place, the home provides for continuity of living environment, maintenance of independence in the community and social inclusion. The provision of assistance to remain at home assumes continuity in the living environment and independence in the organisation of daily life and social contact. This paper explores the changes that occur as a result of becoming a care recipient within the home and concludes that the transition into receiving care is characterised by discontinuity and upheaval which tends to reinforce social exclusion. We draw on the rites of passage framework, which highlights social processes ofseparation, liminality and reconnection, in analysing this transition to enhance understanding of the experience and gain insights to improve the policy and practice of...
Paradoxes in the Care of Older People in the Community
The expansion of the older population suggests that there will be significant numbers in need of care and support in their own home environment. Yet, little is known about the kind of situations professionals are faced with and how they intervene in the living environment of older people. Qualitative data were collected over a period of 1.5 years from a multi-disciplinary community-based geriatric team in the Netherlands, and participant observations carried out. Forty-two cases discussed within the team meetings were analysed. Results demonstrate that providing care to older people is a dynamic process and revolves around various paradoxes as experienced by professionals. This is illustrated by presenting three paradoxes that emerged within the data: respecting autonomy versus preserving safety; the care needs of the care recipients versus the capacity of their informal carers to cope; and holding a formal orientation versus a tailored orientation on tasks. Providing care in the home environment of older people requires from professionals a continuous anticipation of (un)expected evolutions in situations of their care recipients. In order to optimally support older people professionals need ‘professional discretion’. They must be supported to systematically reflect on and legitimize their intervention strategies.
Conceptualising practice with older people: friendship and conversation
Ageing and Society, 1998
We reflect upon the practices of two projects working with older people – one involving health promotion and the other arts – in terms of the discourses deployed in their work. The material discussed is drawn from evaluations which, through their use of feminist and critical methodologies, were committed to revealing and challenging the layers of inequality often present in practice with older people. The familiar notions of friendship and conversation are shown to be useful in conceptualising the work of these projects. It is argued that the discourses within which these ideas are embedded offer the basis of progressive practice with older people even in routine settings such as housing, social care, recreation and social work. These concepts offer the possibility of thinking of older people as active subjects within, rather than passive objects of, practice and of challenging inequalities through reframing more functional discourses.