AGING IN PLACE: THE SWEDISH CONTEXT Cecilia Henning Associate Professor School of Health Sciences Jököping University Sweden Cecilia.henning@hhj.hj.se Web page: hhj.hj.se/en/cecilia-henning

Housing for older adults in Sweden To age in place Ordinary housing Collaborative housing Senior housing Senior cohousing/Senior community housing

Housing for older adults in Sweden (cont.) Special housing for assisted living and complex care/residential care home Incl. group living alternatives Older models: Service house unit/service accomodation (1970-80) Nursing home (1970-80) Old people’s home (1950-60)

Empowerment in Planning for an Aging-Friendly Community Cecilia Henning and Ulla Åhnby Behavioural Sciences and Social Work, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University, Sweden The example is based on a senior housing project called “Snickaren” in which elderly people, municipal staff, in joint efforts with volunteer and non-profit organizations, try to improve and develop housing for the elderly

Project purpose: To transform a residential care unit to a new ordinary housing alternative combined with care in the community The theme of the projekt was ……

Further aims To develop strategies for facilitating aging in place with the help of the future workshop method, in collaboration with elderly people, eldercare staff, and other stakeholders. Suggestions brought up in the future workshops should be developed into concrete plans to bring about changes in housing, care and in the local environment to facilitate aging in place.

To let elderly people, together with staff within eldercare and other actors, create new forms for joint action, collaboration, networking, and coordination of formal and informal resources. To encourage participation of elderly people and staff within home help service in processes to improve the daily life of the elderly from a holistic view on housing and care.

Method:Future Workshop Robert Jungk & Norbert Müllert Participation Empowerment Responsibility The founder off the method was the German public debater and futurologist Robert Jungk (1913-1994) and his colleague Norbert Müllert FW i a method for bringing about change Working with change from a bottom-up perspective A pedagogic method to meet in a creative and constructive way Everyone is resposible for the outcoms You can have a FW for one to two days and a folling up meeting after 3-4 months later

Participants Older people (dwellers and/or users of day center facilities/restaurant) Staff (within eldercare and health care) Stakeholders (representatives from the housing company and the social services) Representatives from volunteer organizations

The Phase of Criticism Work with problems and needs, described in as much detail as possible with the help of keywords Under this phase you Works with problems…………………… You ask - what problems do we have now, related to the theme? Whith help from a method called brainstorming you get a lot of keywords. You log this keyword (about 70-90) on the wallsheats and hang up them on the walls in the room After that the participans walk around in the room and read at the wallsheats and choose about 5-6 keywords each. The most importenm for themself. Now you have a bottom – list with the most importent keywords (negative) in this phase. In small groups the participants discus the bottomlist. If and how the words related to each other.

The Phase of Phantasy Focus on a positive vision Letting the phantasy flow without any reservation This phase also started with brainstorming, now it is positiv and fantasy keywords. In the same way as the critique phase you choose about 5 k-words now the most positive idees From those you get an top-list

The Phase of Phantasy Every group created its own vision – ”Utopian Draft” The second part in this phase: The partisipants together in small groups painted an utopian picture of the future from the theme ”How the furure look like” ín a Senior Housing Full of fantasy and visons You use watercolour, and old newspaper for the collage

The Phase of Implementation Prepare an action plan to implement different ideas and solutions The results from the cretique and the phantasy phase the participants discus together what the project shall go further with They make actionplans and start working on changes Here is the end of the two days To this three phases you also have a prepatory phase then you plan the future workshop and 2-3 (4) months after the FW you have an Evaluating phase. At the Phase of Evaluating all participans meet again. They told each other whats happen since the FW, what have they done and discuss what they shall do next

Follow-up and Evaluation What has happened Follow-up and Evaluation What has happened? What has the future workshop meant for the elderly who had participated? Now to the Follow up !

The garden New flower beds have been planted In two large vegetable plots, pensioners have planted herbs assisted by members of a local horicultural society. An asphalt path has been replaced by a gravel path along the river at the edge of the garden The old pavilion will be renovated

The afternoon coffee Some volunteers have reintroduced the popular afternoon coffe a few days a week; this used to be served by the staff before Today have people from a day care center for the mentaly retarded the responibility for the coffee And at the same time this people have something meningsful to do A small kiosk has open in the dining room selling chocolates, stamps etc. An information folder about ”Snickaren had been produced to be distributed in the municipality.

Response from the participants ”This has given me an opportunity to express my own opinions” ”It has been fun to discuss with others and to hear the views of others”   ”It feels important to paticipate, to be able to be active”

”It feels important to participate, even if I cannot be helpful in practice”

”The future workshop provides an opportunity to take part in the process of change” ”We have learned to know each other”

”It is very important for one's self-esteem” ”One gets knowledge, one can have influence in one´s old age”

Summary of results A viable way to encourage seniors and staff to be involved in change work that affects them It produced numerous concrete suggestions for various acitvities which seniors, staff, other stakeholders and volunteers want to elaborate further in collaboration

Theoretical connection Social Pedagogy Empowerment Social Networks and Support

The Participants in the ”Eksjö-project”

New housing concept Senior housing for assisted living Barrier free Coordinator Localities for joint activities Eating together (SOU 2008:113 Bo bra hela livet. Slutbetänkande från Äldredelegationen) Growing Older Living Well program 2010-2012