Title: The befriending options for isolated, older people and the benefits of regular social interaction
14.00
Welcome Roderick Sime and Gemma MacNulty (Contact the Elderly)
14.15
The Benefits of Social Interaction for Older People
Professor Sian Maslin-Prothero, Keele University
Overview of research evidencing benefits of social interaction for older people (30 mins)
Social Isolation and Older Adults' mental health
Michelle Hamill, Clinical Psychologist, East London NHS Foundation Trust
How different befriending services are used when working with people suffering from depression. (15 mins)
Q&A (15 mins)
15.15
Coffee Break (30 mins)
15.45 Different befriending services for different people
Steve GoldenSmith, Voluntary Sector Development Manager
Why preventative services are important (15 mins)
Janice Telfer, London Development Officer (10 mins)
The benefits of Contact the Elderly’s small group befriending service
Shirley Rice, Befriending Coordinator (10 mins)
The benefits of Age Concern Barking & Dagenham’s 1-1 befriending scheme
Jules Attanayake, Telebefriending Manager (10 mins)
The benefits of Friends of the Elderly’s telebefriending scheme
Q&A
17.00 Surgery - Opportunity to meet CTE, Age Concern Barking & Dagenham and Friends of the Elderly to discuss their services
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Summary of the Contact-the-Elderly conference
A couple of talks of the The-contact-the -elderly conference were very interesting.
Professor Sian Maslin-Prothero's project is a New Dynamics of Aging project and has a team of 6 people. They work on "Community action in Later life" - Manchester Engagement (CALL-ME)
The study adopts a participatory action design approach. (In the break I asked her about the meaning of 'action' in her approach and she explained that even the people in her team have different interpretations of the meaning of the approach. She was not familiar with participatory design without the word 'action'. )
During her talk she gave an example of how they had an early success with their research. They worked with a housing association which provided living space mostly for people over 60years. They usually lived in 1 bed flats. When speaking to the residents, they found that the majority would love to do some gardening. There was a communal garden, but it consisted only of plain lawn and shrubs. The team of researchers helped the residents to organise themselves in order to talk to the housing association and to apply for a grant (for seeds etc) and now the residents can decide how to develop the garden, plant flowers, vegetables and look after it.
Professor Maslin-Prothero pointed out that research findings show how important neighbourhood becomes in later life and that cultural requirements play an important role. For the latter she gave the example of people who have traveled around the world and some who stayed in only one place their whole life.
Another extremely interesting talk was by Steve GoldenSmith. He presented his case how he fights for prevention of ill-health or disability of the older population in Buckinghamshire. He described the problem of the increasing number of older people but less funding for social services overall. At the moment projects only get funding when they can show evidence and with "prevention" it is harder to proof the success. With some cynicsm he talked about a couple of projects where government had a top to bottom, one size fits all approach, which were ineffective because they didn't consider the individuals circumstances or made a distinction between a home resident or living independently at home. According to him our life expectancy is reduced by 7 years when we get into a care home.
He also talked about the government policy for 2010 where they will introduce SDS (self-directed service). Which means rather an official assessing the individual's situation of need of care and then to ensure that services are in place, the official will assess the individuals needs and provide them with cash, so the individual can make their own choices about which service to use.
The idea behind is to reduce cost (from the council's point of view) and to create more competition in the social services market. Obviously, the decision process will now lay with the individual or the individual's family, where Steven also sees an issue with the decision burden (the audience was also very skeptical about SDS). He stated however, that this policy will be implemented despite concerns since government needs to save money.
Audience reaction to SDS was that all charities and social service will need to work more closely together, to support the individuals and to provide them with the choices so they can make an informed decision.
My gut reaction to this is that recommendations / word of mouth / reports on other people's experience in similar situation will be getting more important. The Internet is known for a place where people can exchange opinions. This could be the place where someone who is Internet savvy can get information on several services and compare the choices. However, it will still not help the person who might have the feeling that they have made the wrong choice and who run out of time to correct it.
Professor Sian Maslin-Prothero's project is a New Dynamics of Aging project and has a team of 6 people. They work on "Community action in Later life" - Manchester Engagement (CALL-ME)
The study adopts a participatory action design approach. (In the break I asked her about the meaning of 'action' in her approach and she explained that even the people in her team have different interpretations of the meaning of the approach. She was not familiar with participatory design without the word 'action'. )
During her talk she gave an example of how they had an early success with their research. They worked with a housing association which provided living space mostly for people over 60years. They usually lived in 1 bed flats. When speaking to the residents, they found that the majority would love to do some gardening. There was a communal garden, but it consisted only of plain lawn and shrubs. The team of researchers helped the residents to organise themselves in order to talk to the housing association and to apply for a grant (for seeds etc) and now the residents can decide how to develop the garden, plant flowers, vegetables and look after it.
Professor Maslin-Prothero pointed out that research findings show how important neighbourhood becomes in later life and that cultural requirements play an important role. For the latter she gave the example of people who have traveled around the world and some who stayed in only one place their whole life.
Another extremely interesting talk was by Steve GoldenSmith. He presented his case how he fights for prevention of ill-health or disability of the older population in Buckinghamshire. He described the problem of the increasing number of older people but less funding for social services overall. At the moment projects only get funding when they can show evidence and with "prevention" it is harder to proof the success. With some cynicsm he talked about a couple of projects where government had a top to bottom, one size fits all approach, which were ineffective because they didn't consider the individuals circumstances or made a distinction between a home resident or living independently at home. According to him our life expectancy is reduced by 7 years when we get into a care home.
He also talked about the government policy for 2010 where they will introduce SDS (self-directed service). Which means rather an official assessing the individual's situation of need of care and then to ensure that services are in place, the official will assess the individuals needs and provide them with cash, so the individual can make their own choices about which service to use.
The idea behind is to reduce cost (from the council's point of view) and to create more competition in the social services market. Obviously, the decision process will now lay with the individual or the individual's family, where Steven also sees an issue with the decision burden (the audience was also very skeptical about SDS). He stated however, that this policy will be implemented despite concerns since government needs to save money.
Audience reaction to SDS was that all charities and social service will need to work more closely together, to support the individuals and to provide them with the choices so they can make an informed decision.
My gut reaction to this is that recommendations / word of mouth / reports on other people's experience in similar situation will be getting more important. The Internet is known for a place where people can exchange opinions. This could be the place where someone who is Internet savvy can get information on several services and compare the choices. However, it will still not help the person who might have the feeling that they have made the wrong choice and who run out of time to correct it.
Friday, October 2, 2009
What happens to our online identity when we die?
Just a couple of thoughts that crept up the other day in conversation with fellow researchers:
What happens to our online identity when we die? Apparently, Facebook "memorializes the account" as soon as they are notified about someone's death. People are still able to leave messages on their profile.
This also led me to wondering about those people who have online banking accounts, but haven't kept any paper trail about it. How will relatives know which online services the deceased person was using? When do businesses decide to stop the service?
Another thought I had was about digital identities, celebrity status and old age. Would it be fair to say that someone old can now become famous because they use applications like Facebook, Twitter or Youtube ? Does the desire to be famous reduce with age? I think Ivy Bean didn't mean to become famous, but I believe she enjoys the press and the attention about her - at least that's what the care home manager explained to me.
I have the feeling that this topic could be a PhD in itself.
Broadband use
Yet another survey of broadband nation-by-nation referred to in IT Pro. Might be useful.
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