Witnessing presence : Swedish care professionals’ experiences of supporting older people´s well-being processes within the frame of residential home care (RHC)

• In this article, we are concerned with analyzing the phenomenon of supportive social care for older people`s well-being from the carers’ meaning making through their life world perspective at a residential care home (RCH). Based on empirical data consisting of interview material with 12 care professionals in the context of Swedish eldercare, a phenomenological analysis was undertaken. The result shows that the phenomenon of supportive social care for well-being is a question of ambiguity in the professionals’ meaning making and in practice it balances between the residents´ needs and the conditions of the care organization. This phenomenon of ambiguity (the what) is made up by three constituents: (i) freedom of choice for the older people vs. institutional constraints, (ii) the residents’ need for activation vs. wanting not to be activated, and (iii) the residents’ need for routine vs. the carers´ not being able to know what the residents need. The conclusions drawn are that this ambiguity has consequences for the carers’ positions for supportive social care for older people´s well-being (the how) in that they have to navigate between the support for authenticity, dwelling and mobility, and carers’ presence and time. In performing a supportive social care for well-being, the carers have to consider aspects concerning the older person’s lifeworld, the social setting of the eldercare ward, and the institutional demands of the organisation. The practical implications for supporting well-being in the social care of older people is manifested in the importance of ‘the little things’, and the carer’s ability to give receptive attention, which requires the presence.  

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Work (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Well-being

Phenomenology

Lived experience

Sweden

Care professionals

Residential care home

Sociologi

Sociology

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

art (subject category)