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ABSTRACT
Across Europe, governments call for increased involvement of volunteers to shoulder some of the welfare burden. Nevertheless, there is little research into what kind of work and how much volunteers currently contribute in the long-term care services and whether this has the potential to substitute formal services. Drawing on findings from a survey of employees in Norwegian nursing homes and home care districts, we examine the nature and volume of voluntary, unpaid work in the long-term care services in Norway. Our data suggest that volunteers to a very limited degree carry out work that has traditionally been considered the formal system’s domain: personal care and practical help. Nearly all the voluntary, unpaid contributions in our data takes place within cultural, social and other activities aimed at promoting mental stimulation and well-being, indicating a classic specialisation of tasks between volunteers and professionals. However, there has been an expansion of the formal care system to include activities aimed at promoting well-being in recent decades. This may indicate that there is a certain level of task sharing between voluntary and formal care. Thus, social workers need to consider voluntary service provision when assessing the needs of clients.
SAMMENDRAG
I hele Europa signaliserer offentlige myndigheter at de ønsker økt involvering av frivillige for å bidra til å bære velferdsbyrden i årene som kommer. På tross av dette er det lite forskning på hva slags typer arbeid frivillige gjør, hvor mye frivillige bidrar i de kommunale omsorgstjenestene og hvorvidt bidraget deres har et potensial for å substituere offentlige tjenester. Vi anvender resultater fra en spørreundersøkelse utført blant ansatte i norske sykehjem og hjemmetjenester for å studere innholdet og volumet av frivillig, ubetalt arbeid i de kommunale omsorgstjenestene. Våre data tyder på at frivillige i veldig liten grad utfører oppgaver som tradisjonelt har vært sett på som det offentliges ansvarsområde: pleieoppgaver og praktisk hjelp. Nærmest all den frivillige, ubetalte innsatsen i våre data finner sted innenfor kulturelle, sosiale og andre aktiviteter med psykisk velvære og forbedret livskvalitet som hovedmål. Dette kan tolkes som en klassisk oppgavespesialisering mellom frivillige og profesjonelle. De offentlige tjenestene har imidlertid de siste årene utvidet sine ansvarsområder. I økende grad har de fått ansvar for også å organisere aktiviteter for å ivareta tjenestemottakeres sosiale, kulturelle, psykiske og eksistensielle behov. Det er med andre ord en viss grad av oppgavedeling mellom frivillig og offentlig omsorg. Sosialarbeidere og andre offentlig ansatte må derfor ta hensyn til frivillige tjenester når de vurderer tjenestemottakeres behov.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Nina Beate Andfossen for her contributions in the design of the questionnaire and Håkon Lorentzen for invaluable input in the design and writing process. We would also like to thank Professor Aud Obstfelder and professor Magnus Jegermalm for helpful comments on early drafts of the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributors
Marianne Sundlisæter Skinner is associate professor at the Centre for Care Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Gjøvik, Norway. She has published articles on voluntary work in long-term care, the introduction of municipal acute wards in Norway and Norwegian Euroscepticism. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Bath, United Kingdom.
Maren Kristine Raknes Sogstad is associate professor at the Centre for Care Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Gjøvik, Norway. She holds a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Oslo, Norway. Her current research interests include care service development and transitional care.
Laila Tingvold is associate professor at the Centre for Care Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Gjøvik, Norway. She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway. Her current research interests include development of long-term care services and multicultural workforce in nursing homes. She has published papers on collaboration and coordination between staff and volunteers in home care and nursing homes.
Notes
1. The gross sample for the main survey conducted in 2015 was 316, and the net sample 244. By 2016, some e-mail addresses were invalid (presumably due to staff leaving or changing jobs), so the gross sample for the follow-up question was 309 and the net sample 193.
2. Joy of Life for the Elderly is a foundation which aims to give old people a good and meaningful life by focusing on fulfilling their social, spiritual and cultural needs. It is based on voluntary work, and nursing homes can apply to be certified Joy of Life institutions.
3. Several respondents did not provide complete information regarding volume (duration, frequency and number of volunteers). We believe that the reasons for this was that some respondents found it too difficult to give an estimate of the volume of voluntary activity, or that they simply did not feel they had sufficient knowledge about it to give an estimate. However, this means that there are one or several cases of missing data in each category.
4. Because the number of hours provided in the survey was so high, we contacted the respondent by e-mail to confirm that the number was correct. The respondent confirmed that the LTC unit had two volunteers who each did voluntary work seven hours a day five days a week (=70 h).