The Housing Support Needs of Gypsies and Travellers in West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and York

First paragraph: Supporting People, a Government initiative, was implemented in April 2003, with the aim of providing housing related support to vulnerable people. The aim of a housing related support service is to allow a person to live in more independent accommodation than they otherwise might, or to prevent the loss of this independent living. Examples of housing related support might include: assisting and enabling the development of life skills such as budgeting, signposting to other agencies, and helping someone maintain a safe and secure dwelling

Relationships and material culture in a residential home for older people

Residents of older people's homes furnish their rooms with belongings that are associated with meaningful relationships. Previous research shows how material culture symbolises residents' past and existing relationships, helping residents to remain embedded within familial and social networks. Less attention has been paid to how relationships are actively (re)constituted through socio-material interactions, and to the potential for objects to facilitate new relationships. This article presents findings from an ethnographic study into the everyday experiences of residents of an older people's home in northern England. Using observations of daily life and in-depth interviews with residents, it demonstrates how residents used material culture in gift-giving, divestment practices and in mundane social interactions. In this way, residents used objects to not only maintain relationships with family members outside the home, but form new relationships inside the home with other residents and members of staff. Combining theories of materiality, relationality and social practice, I argue that residents' interactions with material culture helped to facilitate new social interaction and meaningful relationships. This is important in a social context where loneliness has been identified as a significant threat to residents' mental and physical health. Residential homes for older people can develop guidance on practical activities and strategies that can use material culture to increase social interaction and enhance quality of life for residents

Charity Shops and the Imagined Futures of Objects: How Second-Hand Markets Influence Disposal Decisions when Emptying a Parent’s House

This article explores the processes whereby things are donated, or not donated, to charity shops. I draw on in-depth interviews conducted with adults who have sorted through the houses of older family members who have moved into residential accommodation, and in some cases subsequently died. The affective qualities of objects and the informants’ responsibilities to be ‘good’ family members by ensuring ‘safe passage’ for their parents’ possessions worked to ensure that many objects did not enter the second hand market, but were preserved within the family or wider social networks. Competing instincts to be ‘responsible consumers’ by not keeping things unnecessarily, worked to ‘move things along’ into charity shops, where informants believed the objects could come to be valued and singularised by other people. By providing an imagined future where goods can continue to be useful and have the opportunity to extend their biographical life, I argue that charity shops and other second-hand markets can help people to dispose of objects which they do not want to keep, but which they find difficult to throw away

Lay epidemiology and the interpretation of low-risk drinking guidelines by adults in the United Kingdom

Aims To explore how the concept of lay epidemiology can enhance understandings of how drinkers make sense of current UK drinking guidelines. Methods Qualitative study using 12 focus groups in four sites in northern England and four sites in central Scotland. Participants were 66 male and female drinkers, aged between 19 and 65 years, of different socio-economic backgrounds. Data were analysed thematically using a conceptual framework of lay epidemiology. Results Current drinking guidelines were perceived as having little relevance to participants' drinking behaviours and were generally disregarded. Daily guidelines were seen as irrelevant by drinkers whose drinking patterns comprised heavy weekend drinking. The amounts given in the guidelines were seen as unrealistic for those motivated to drink for intoxication, and participants measured alcohol intake in numbers of drinks or containers rather than units. Participants reported moderating their drinking, but this was out of a desire to fulfil work and family responsibilities, rather than concerns for their own health. The current Australian and Canadian guidelines were preferred to UK guidelines, as they were seen to address many of the above problems. Conclusions Drinking guidelines derived from, and framed within, solely epidemiological paradigms lack relevance for adult drinkers who monitor and moderate their alcohol intake according to their own knowledge and risk perceptions derived primarily from experience. Insights from lay epidemiology into how drinkers regulate and monitor their drinking should be used in the construction of drinking guidelines to enhance their credibility and efficacy

A new approach to measuring drinking cultures in Britain

First paragraph: When governments propose changes to alcohol policies, the announcement is often followed by public debate on the potential for the policy to change the country’s drinking culture. However, specifying what the drinking culture is, what is problematic about it, what it should be changed to, what interventions might trigger such a change and whether success has been achieved have all been problematic topics in alcohol policy discourse and the research literature

The role of environmental design in enabling intergenerational support for people with dementia - what lessons can we learn from Japan

Purpose Japan, the world’s ‘oldest’ society has adopted intergenerational care programmes as one solution to the challenges of caring for its growing population of people living with dementia. Many countries are drawing inspiration from these intergenerational programmes, but research exploring factors influencing intergenerational care practice and how far these programmes can be translated in other countries is more limited. This paper explores how environmental design features are used to support intergenerational initiatives in Japan. By examining four case studies, the paper illustrates how intergenerational engagement can be enabled and supported through environmental design. Design/methodology/approach The research adopts a qualitative methodology, using observations, workshops, and photographic elicitations within four case study sites: two residential care facilities, a community centre and supported housing scheme and a restaurant staffed by people with dementia Findings Two key themes emerge: encouraging community engagement through intergenerational shared spaces, and the role of intergenerationality in supporting social and economic participation. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the key principles through which other countries can translate lessons gained from the Japanese experience of intergenerational programmes into their own health and social care systems. Originality This paper provides international evidence of the role environmental design plays in supporting the development of intergenerational relationships among people with dementia and the wider community. Intergenerational engagement is community engagement; therefore, promoting community engagement is essential to promoting intergenerational care practice. Environmental design can play a key role in providing affordances through which such relationships can develop.Output Status: Forthcoming/Available Onlin

Through the Utopian Lens of Opportunity: Using fiction and theatre to reimagine the post-COVID-19 future

First paragraph: Can we imagine a future for older age that is based on desires, not simply practical needs? In Reimagining the Future in Older Age, we aim to draw on Ruth Levitas’ utopia as method theory to critique dominant, exclusionary narratives around ageing and explore the potential to create new ones. A utopian method “facilitates genuinely holistic thinking about possible futures, combined with the principles and practices of those futures. And it requires us to think about our conceptions of human needs and human flourishing in those possible futures. The core of utopia is the desire for being otherwise, individually and collectively, subjectively and objectively. Its expressions explore and bring to debate the potential contents and contexts of human flourishing.” (Levitas, 2013, p. xi)

Through the Utopian Lens of Opportunity: Using fiction and theatre to reimagine the post-COVID-19 future

First paragraph: Can we imagine a future for older age that is based on desires, not simply practical needs? In Reimagining the Future in Older Age, we aim to draw on Ruth Levitas’ utopia as method theory to critique dominant, exclusionary narratives around ageing and explore the potential to create new ones. A utopian method “facilitates genuinely holistic thinking about possible futures, combined with the principles and practices of those futures. And it requires us to think about our conceptions of human needs and human flourishing in those possible futures. The core of utopia is the desire for being otherwise, individually and collectively, subjectively and objectively. Its expressions explore and bring to debate the potential contents and contexts of human flourishing.” (Levitas, 2013, p. xi)

Understanding nuance and ambivalence in intergenerational relationships through fiction

The term ‘intergenerational relationships’ is widely used in gerontological literature and age-related policies. However, discussions of the term often tell us surprisingly little about what it means or why it matters. We suggest that this is due to a reductivism and instrumentalism in two main discourses within which intergenerational relationships are usually discussed. Firstly, intergenerational relationships are often conceptualised through a binary ‘conflict / solidarity’ lens, reinforcing an entrenched ‘generationalism’ (White, 2013). Secondly, they are predominantly constructed as a problem to be addressed within debates on how to tackle intergenerational segregation. Neither of these discourses provides much room for a more nuanced understanding of how intergenerational relationships are experienced or why they are meaningful. In this paper, we discuss how fictional narratives can introduce imagination and a richer vocabulary into discourses concerning how people of different ages relate to each other. We present findings from reading groups where adults discussed novels depicting themes of older age, intergenerational relationships, and time. In discussing the fictional narratives and characters, participants reflected on the significance and meaning of intergenerational relationships in ways that went beyond dichotomous and instrumentalist discourses. Drawing on the concept of lived ambivalence (Baars, 2014) we argue that fictional representations of intergenerational themes can elicit more meaningful reflections on the complexities and contradictions of relationships across age groups. We conclude that a more nuanced understanding of intergenerational interaction can inform gerontological discourses and policy, but also that gerontological awareness of social challenges concerning age-relations can inform interpretations of fictional narratives

Receiving end of life care at home: experiences of the bereaved carers of cancer patients cared for by health care assistants

First paragraph: Many terminally ill cancer patients and their families prefer for death to occur at home rather than in an institution where the majority of care falls to the patient’s family and friends. As death approaches caring can become an increasing burden for the patient’s informal carers. This issue has long been recognized by health care professionals and also in current policy for end of life care, with the End of Life Care Strategy for England (DH, 2008) highlighting the need for community services to enable home death by supporting both patient and their family carers. Basic nursing, social and respite home care has frequently been provided by basically trained, unqualified nursing staff, including auxiliary nurses and health care assistants (HCA). Whilst increasing research has been undertaken into the needs of family carers (Stajduhar et al, 2010; Funk et al 2010), relatively little has focused on the care HCAs deliver (Herber & Johnston 2012) and very few studies have explored the experience of bereaved family carers of patients who have received such services