Decisions About the “If,” “When,” and “How” of Moving Home: Can a Relocation Service Help? A Welsh Case Study

Abstract

This small-scale, Welsh qualitative study explores how a new “moving on” service empowered older people to move voluntarily from their home to an extra-care facility. Eighteen older people were interviewed about their experiences of the service, which offered in-person, bespoke information, advice, financial, practical, brokerage, and emotional support about moving. Findings indicate three service use patterns: continuous, partial, and discontinued. It was instrumental in empowering clients to exercise decisional, executional, delegated, and/or consumer autonomies. Recommendations for future developments of a prototype “moving on” service include a multipartner approach and caseworker case management training modeled on social work practice.

Keywords:

• Voluntary relocation transition
• housing
• autonomy
• service developments
• moving
• Wales

Acknowledgments

We thank the staff and clients of the Housing Adaptations Agency and local extra-care facility in North Wales for their logistical support in facilitating the research. Our Library Team at Swansea University also provided invaluable help with verification of our literature searching strategy.

Notes

1 Defined by Rossen and Knafl (2007) to mean “residential settings of multiunit independent living apartments adapted to meet the special needs of elderly persons..”

2 A generic term referring to a service designed to assist with voluntary moves and that, in the context of this research, stems from the title of the Welsh pilot service, but is not a proprietary brand or product.

3 Sheltered: independent units generally reserved for older people, provided as social housing with 24-hour alarm support and/or a warden available to respond in emergencies. Extra-care: independent units reserved for older age groups; 24-hour access to a range of nonmedical, low-level care and support services in situ or commissioned by residents.

4 A literature search was completed for 1998–2018 in the databases ASSIA, Business Source Complete, IBSS, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, Scopus, and Web of Science for the period 1999 onward. Keywords (with truncations) included “relocation,” “downsize,” “move,” “transition,” “transfer,” “industry,” “management,” “aging,” “senior,” “elderly,” “intervention,” “older person,” “pensioner,” “later life,” “silver economy,” “silver market,” “service,” “program,” “geriatric.” Limiting the search with these parameters produced two results.