Socialno delo, Vol. 52 (2013), Issue 1
Care for the elderly in community in Slovenia
ARTICLES
Tipology of institutional care for older people in Slovenia from development perspective - 29, (Abstract)
Intergenerational solidarity through the prism of organisation of care for the elderly in community - 43, (Abstract)
ABSTRACTS
Abstracts
Valentina Hlebec
Development and changes in the typology of social home care
Social home care is an important programme for maintaining quality of life of older people living at home. Analysis of the development of this programme in Slovenia shows enormous diversity between municipalities in organization and accessibility of social care. However, typology of municipalities also shows some similarities between them. In Slovenia in 2008 there were five types of municipalities that differ in efficiency and quality of home care. Individual types differed on who mainly pays for the home care (either the government, the municipality or the user) and what is the extent of the offer and the quality of home care (duration of visits and number of users). The development of the programme and changes in the typology of municipalities are investigated. The key finding is that the heterogeneity of municipalities decreased, as smaller number of models of organizations of social home care were found in 2010 than in 2008. Our more detailed analysis showed that the majority of municipalities used the funding more efficiently.
Keywords: social home care, clustering, models of care
Valentina Hlebec is a professor of sociology at Faculty of social sciences, University of Ljubljana. She focuses on sociology of aging, especially on the care for the elderly, on social science methodology and statistics. Contact: valentina.hlebec@fdv.uni-lj.si. Phone: + 386 1 5805 112.
Mateja Nagode, Valentina Hlebec
Home care from the perspective of home care workers
Home care is a fundamental social care service provided at home of individuals, but according to the planned scope its development is significantly slow. This is an area that requires more planned research and particular attention paid to all aspects of its functions – system, provider and user. The focus in the paper is on the providers, which was hitherto less studied. Systematic, critical meta-analysis has been used to evaluate the research addressing the work and social position of home care workers, ie. key personnel in the provision and organization of social care at home. Since the research on this topic in Slovenia is very poor and because it is believed that this area needs to be thoroughly investigated, the key substantive findings of existing research have been summarised. At the same time a critical approach was used to evaluate methodologies, summarize their important features and highlight key shortcomings. The findings form an important methodological and substantive basis for further exploration and evaluation of home care workers in the field. The fact that it is necessary to explore this area more thoroughly on a representative and national level is stressed.
Keywords: home care, home care workers, quality of working life
Mateja Nagode, BA in sociology, is a senior researcher at the Social protection institute of the Republic of Slovenia. Her work focuses on social policy, especially on social care and programmes and long-term care. She's a postgraduate student of statistics, University of Ljubljana. Contact: mateja.nagode@guest.arnes.si. Phone: + 386 1 2000 257. Valentina Hlebec is a professor of sociology at Faculty of social sciences, University of Ljubljana. She focuses on sociology of aging, especially on the care for the elderly, on social science methodology and statistics. Contact: valentina.hlebec@fdv.uni-lj.si. Phone: + 386 1 5805 112.
Valentina Hlebec, Jana Mali
Tipology of institutional care for older people in Slovenia from development perspective
Institutional care for older people is the most developed and spread form of care for older people in Slovenia. The institutional care for older people is analysed from historical development and local residence access perspective, which has indirect effects on quality of care. In the first part of the paper, the historical outline of public institutional care and the impact of social policy on its' development is presented. In the second part of the paper, the access of institutional care is estimated from the users’ permanent residence or outside the municipality of users’ permanent residence. Though we have achieved the criterion of providing institutional care for 5% people older than 65 years on national level, on the level of municipalities there are significant differences. Differences refer to the presence of institutional care in particular municipality, the largeness, degree of urbanisation and economical development of municipality. With the typology of institutional care for older people in Slovenia from development perspective, it is demonstrated that people over 65 years do not have the same possibilities for institutional care. The principle of territorial building of institutions and the principle of plural social care stimulate the entrance of private sphere in institutional care for older people. Private homes are more expensive then public ones and therefore inaccessible for all older people in need for institutional care.
Keywords: social care, typology of care, institutions, clustering
Valentina Hlebec is a professor of sociology at Faculty of social sciences, University of Ljubljana. She focuses on sociology of aging, especially on the care for the elderly, on social science methodology and statistics. Contact: valentina.hlebec@fdv.uni-lj.si. Phone: + 386 1 5805 112. Jana Mali, PhD, is senior lecturer at Faculty of social work, University of Ljubljana. Her areas of research and teaching include social work with older people, social work with people with dementia, supervision and methods of social work, long – term care. Contact: jana.mali@fsd.uni-lj.si. Phone: +386 1 300 6232.
Majda Černič Istenič
Intergenerational solidarity through the prism of organisation of care for the elderly in community
The focus is on intergenerational solidarity in terms of subjective perceptions/opinions observed from the level of individual municipalities. Three models, i.e. typologies of care arrangements for older people in Slovenian municipalities denote the contextual framework of the study. The author assumes that public opinion on intergenerational solidarity is associated with the organizational forms of care for the older people dominated by a certain group of municipalities. Results of the study, based on the data from the survey ‘Generations and gender relations on Slovenian farms 2007’, show that the majority of respondents expect commitment from both the family as well as society to take care for the older people. However, views on the balance of responsibility between the family and society differ in the following direction: the worse the organization of care for the older people in the municipalities, the greater the expectations of the respondents towards the family to take over the bulk of responsibilities in caring for the older people. This orientation is particularly pronounced in small rural municipalities.
Keywords: care for the older people, family, society, subjective perceptions, typology of organized care
Majda Černič Istenič, PhD, is an associate professor of sociology at Biotechnical faculty, University Ljubljana, and a senior research fellow at Research centre of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts. Her research work encompasses topics from the domain of sociology related to various cross-cutting subjects such as sociology of family and gender studies, demographic topics and rural sociology. Contact: majda.cernic-istenic@guest.arnes.si.
Jana Mali
Social work with older people as a specialization
The increase in the share of older population has also increased social workers’ and general attention to the phenomena that accompany old age, aging and older people. In the 21st century, the older generation represents a major challenge for social work in terms of concepts, methods and skills required for work with older people. In this paper we seek to answer several questions. How well is social work prepared for dealing with older people’s crises and problems? Which conceptual basis and possibilities for professional work are available? What options do social workers have to acquire knowledge needed to deal with older population? We draw attention to the fact that despite greater awareness of the importance of specialization within social work, both the literature and research on this subject are insufficient, and education for work with older people is neglected. We further present conceptual bases that are good for the development of social work as a specialization, while emphasizing the dynamic nature of social work and fluidity between its theory and methodology, which in the area of work with older people has proved to be an advantage that enables the provision of effective assistance to older people.
Keywords: old age, methods and principles of social work, education, gerontology
Jana Mali, PhD, is senior lecturer at Faculty of social work, University of Ljubljana. Her areas of research and teaching include social work with older people, social work with people with dementia, supervision and methods of social work, long-term care. Contact: jana.mali@fsd.uni-lj.si. Phone: +386 1 300 6232.