Promoting Reciprocity in Old Age: A Social Work Challenge

Abstract

In the current context of concern about the affordability of eldercare, and the high profile of outcome-focused practice, reducing the need for care can be seen to assume significance. I build on positive links already made between reciprocity and resilience to suggest that the spiritual need to feel valued does not necessarily decrease alongside increasing dependency, but this is not always recognised as key to holistic needs assessment and dignity agendas. Drawing on the meaning-making of service users in the UK and India, and considering these in the context of meaning-making at the level of shared cultural assumptions about old age, I suggest that promoting opportunities for reciprocity can challenge ageist connotations of ‘uselessness’ by highlighting that even very frail and dependent older people can give as well as receive, and by being better able to thrive spiritually as a consequence, may become more resilient and less dependent on support services. Furthermore, I suggest that social work professionals are well placed to keep reciprocity on research and practice agendas by championing sociological and service-user perspectives on the importance of reciprocity in the lives of the significantly dependent older people with whom they work.

Keywords:

• reciprocity
• dependency
• resilience
• eldercare
• phenomenology
• spirituality

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sue Thompson

Sue Thompson studied sociology before becoming a qualified social worker in 1992. Being committed to informed and reflective practice, she combined practice with study, achieving an MA in 1994. The research to which Sue refers in this article was undertaken while a postgraduate student at the University of Liverpool, where she was awarded a doctorate in 2012. Since leaving direct social work practice, she has continued her own professional development, and facilitated that of others, through mentoring, practice teaching, tutoring and the writing or co-writing of books including Age Discrimination (2005), Reciprocity and Dependency in Old Age: Indian and UK Perspectives (2013), The Critically Reflective Practitioner (2008) and The Social Work Companion (2008). As a director of Avenue Media Solutions (www.avenuemediasolutions.com), she is currently involved in the production of e-learning and v-learning resources and continues to facilitate continuous professional development as part of the team which hosts the Avenue Professional Development Programme (www.apdp.org.uk)