Supporting Family Involvement in Long-Term Residential Care: Promising Practices for Relational Care.

Family members and friends provide significant support for older relatives in long-term residential care (LTRC). Yet, they occupy ambiguous positions in these settings, and their relationships with LTRC staff can involve conflicts and challenges. Based on an ethnographic project carried out in North America and Europe, this article identifies practices that promote meaningful family participation in care home life. We consider instances of rewarding family involvement upon admission to LTRC, throughout the time a relative is living in a care home, and during the final stages of life. Furthermore, we identify working conditions needed to support the well-being of family/friend carers as well as residents and staff. These include greater appreciation of relational care work, time for effective communication, teamwork, and appropriate, inclusive physical spaces. Findings make visible the importance of relational care and have implications for improving living and working conditions in LTRC.

The influence of autonomy on personal support workers' job satisfaction, capacity to care, and intention to stay.

Using survey data collected in Ontario, Canada, we explore the impacts of autonomy on community-based Personal Support Workers' intrinsic job satisfaction, capacity to care for and about clients, and intention to continue working in home care. Autonomy was measured as "freedom to decide how to do your job" and "working on your own." Findings show that freedom to do your job and working on your own are both positively associated with job satisfaction and capacity to care, and indirectly increase intention to stay through their relationships with job satisfaction and capacity to care. We suggest that policies should allow personal support workers to make decisions about how to do their job within the care plans provided, to facilitate retention of this highly needed workforce.

'Growing Old' in Shelters and 'On the Street': Experiences of Older Homeless People.

Homelessness among older people in Canada is both a growing concern, and an emerging field of study. This article reports thematic results of qualitative interviews with 40 people aged 46 to 75, carried out as part of a mixed-methods study of older people who are homeless in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Our participants included people with histories of homelessness (n = 14) and persons new to homelessness in later life (n = 26). Interviews focused on experiences at the intersections of aging and homelessness including social relationships, the challenges of living on the streets and in shelters in later life, and the future. This article outlines the 5 main themes that capture the experience of homelessness for our participants: age exacerbates worries; exclusion and isolation; managing significant challenges; shifting needs and realities; and resilience, strength, and hope. Together, these findings underscore the need for specific programs geared to the unique needs of older people who are homeless.

A relational ethic of rural home support on two Gulf Island communities, 1978-2018.

Since their widespread establishment in the 1970s, home support services across Canada have been subject to shifting state logics, policies, and funding models. The impacts and responses of local actors differ across historical, socio-cultural, and geographical settings. This paper traces the development and evolution of a small home support society on two rural islands off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Using historical and current data sources, we demonstrate that local actors have consistently engaged a relational ethic that challenges neo-liberal discourses and practices. Our central thesis is that the islands' distinct social, cultural, and rural features set the context for particular constructions of relational care. We identify three themes central to a relational ethic of home support on two rural islands: the strength of intergenerational connections, community-embedded relationships, and care as compassionate civic engagement. Within each theme, we consider how shifting policy structures inform changes over time in the nature and delivery of home support. To conclude, we elaborate on the conditions that allow for relational care to flourish in a particular rural context, and on the potential relevance to other settings.

Supporting Older Homeless Persons' Positive Relocations to Long-Term Care: Service Provider Views.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study sought to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with supporting older homeless persons' relocations to long-term care (LTC) from the perspective of service providers. It aims to inform how to improve relocation processes for this vulnerable and growing subpopulation of older persons. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: This cross-sectional qualitative study employed semistructured face-to-face interviews with service providers from two Health and Social Service Centres in Montreal, Quebec. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analyzed in five stages. RESULTS: A total of eight service providers reported on their experiences supporting over 40 relocations of older homeless persons (50+) in the last year. According to participants, older homeless persons' trajectories into LTC typically included a series of neglected medical issues followed by hospitalization and eventual relocation to LTC. Systemic barriers such as limited-time for proper planning, insufficient housing options for persons with minor functional limitations, disregard for preferred geographic location, multiple moves, and staff prejudices worked together to expedite premature relocation and challenge relocation processes. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Older homeless persons appear to be at heightened risk of premature and challenging relocation processes. Expanding housing stock for persons with functional limitations, strengthening intersectoral collaborations, providing education and training to staff, and ensuring flexibility around rules and regulations in receiving LTC homes would both improve access to aging in place for this marginalized group of older persons and ensure conditions are in place to support positive relocations to LTC for those who require it.

Utilization of Formal and Informal Home Care: How Do Older Canadians' Experiences Vary by Care Arrangements?

This study investigates how the receipt of formal, informal, and/or a combination of both types of care at home relates to older adults' perceived loneliness, life satisfaction, and day-to-day lives. Quantitative analyses using the Canadian Community Health Survey (n = 3,928) reveal that older adults who only received formal care reported lower levels of loneliness and higher levels of life satisfaction when compared with respondents who received informal or a blend of home care. Qualitative analyses of persons aged 65+ years receiving formal and informal home care in Ontario (n = 34) suggest that formal care bolstered care recipients' autonomy and reduced their sense of being a burden on family. In turn, receiving formal care served to improve these older adults' social connectedness and well-being. Findings underscore older adults' symbolic, functional, and emotional attachment to formal care services, as well as the limitations of a reliance on informal support.

Reconciling Tensions: Needing Formal and Family/Friend Care but Feeling like a Burden.

Within a neoliberal policy context that shifts responsibility for health and well-being from the state to families and individuals, Canadian home care strategies tend to present family members as "partners in care". Drawing on an interpretive grounded theory study that involved 34 qualitative interviews, this article examines older people's experiences at the intersections of formal home care and family/friend care arrangements, against the backdrop of policies that emphasize partnerships with family. The core concept derived from the interviews was reconciling tensions between care needs and concerns about burdening others, in the context of available home and community care. Four processes are identified, which illustrate how access to financial and social resources may lead to opportunities and constraints in experiences of care. Findings underscore the emotional and practical challenges that older people may encounter vis-à-vis policy discourses that encourage family responsibility for care. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Homelessness and aging: The contradictory ordering of 'house' and 'home'.

The concepts of 'house' and 'home' are compelling and contradictory. They are compelling because they elicit the desired sentiments of permanence, feeling 'at home', and maintaining continuity in one's life. At the same time, they can be experienced as contradictory where organizational practices and the socio-cultural imperatives of individual responsibility, cost containment, and rationed services are concerned. Where 'house' tends to evoke a sense of permanent stability, 'home' is regarded as the ideal living environment and site of care for older people. Yet, a consideration of the challenges that occur at the intersections of age and homelessness highlights a tension between the taken-for-granted ideal of 'home' for older people, and programs organized around 'housing' for homeless people. To begin, we ground our work in a critical perspective to the study of aging and briefly sketch the state of knowledge on homelessness in late life. We then explore the contradictions that occur at the intersections of age and homelessness, including the discursive ordering of 'house' and 'home,' the configurations of access and barriers, and aging in undesirable locations. In our conclusion, we draw attention to inequalities and the need for a life course perspective to ground future thinking. Our conceptual discussion is based on insights gained from a 3-year project on older homelessness in Montreal, Canada.

A Literature Review of Homelessness and Aging: Suggestions for a Policy and Practice-Relevant Research Agenda.

Homelessness among older people is a growing concern across Canada and is expected to rise with demographic change (Crane & Warnes, 2010; Culhane, Metraux, Byrne, Stino, & Bainbridge, 2013). Yet current knowledge, policies, and practices on homelessness largely focus on younger populations. Likewise, research and policies on aging typically overlook homelessness. Responses to homelessness among older people must address complex needs related to health, income security, and housing. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this article outlines the existing and needed research with regards to homelessness among older people. We clarify the intersections of aging and homelessness; review the relevant statistics, including estimated prevalence; discuss pathways and variations in experience; and identify gaps in knowledge. We conclude with a call for an inclusive research agenda that will help build policies and practices to reduce and ultimately to eliminate homelessness among older people in Canada.

Task shifting in the provision of home and social care in Ontario, Canada: implications for quality of care.

Growing healthcare costs have caused home-care providers to look for more efficient use of healthcare resources. Task shifting is suggested as a strategy to reduce the costs of delivering home-care services. Task shifting refers to the delegation or transfer of tasks from regulated healthcare professionals to home-care workers (HCWs). The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of task shifting on the quality of care provided to older adults from the perspectives of home healthcare workers. This qualitative study was completed in collaboration with a large home and community care organisation in Ontario, Canada, in 2010-2011. Using a purposive sampling strategy, semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 46 home healthcare workers including HCWs, home-care worker supervisors, nurses and therapists. Study participants reported that the most common skills transferred or delegated to HCWs were transfers, simple wound care, exercises, catheterisation, colostomies, compression stockings, G-tube feeding and continence care. A thematic analysis of the data revealed mixed opinions on the impacts of task shifting on the quality of care. HCWs and their supervisors, more often than nurses and therapists, felt that task shifting improved the quality of care through the provision of more consistent care; the development of trust-based relationships with clients; and because task shifting reduced the number of care providers entering the client's home. Nurses followed by therapists, as well as some supervisors and HCWs, expressed concerns that task shifting might compromise the quality of care because HCWs lacked the knowledge, training and education necessary for more complex tasks, and that scheduling problems might leave clients with inconsistent care once tasks are delegated or transferred. Policy implications for regulating bodies, employers, unions and educators are discussed.

Home Care Workers' Skills in the Context of Task Shifting: Complexities in Care Work.

Task shifting, which involves the transfer of care work from regulated health-care professionals to home care workers (HCWs), is a strategy to ensure the efficient delivery of home care services in Canada and internationally. Using a feminist political economy approach, this paper explores the effects of task shifting on HCWs' skills. Task shifting may be understood as a form of downward substitution-and an effort to increase control over workers while minimizing costs-as some of health-care professionals' responsibilities are divided into simpler tasks and transferred to HCWs. Our interviews with 46 home health-care providers in Ontario, which focused explicitly on HCWs' role in care provision, problematize the belief that "low skilled" care workers have little control over their work. HCWs' skills become more complex when they do transferred tasks, and HCWs sometimes gain greater control over their work. This results in increased autonomy and mastery for many HCWs. In turn, this serves to reinforce the intrinsic rewards of care work, despite the fact that it is low paid and undervalued work.