1. Aged Care: a Family Affair
Jill Manthorpe
King’s College London
@scwru @jillmanthorpe

2. Not everyone has family

3. Mary Webster - London School of Economics
The history girl – founder of early carers’ movement – National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependents
Thinking about the Care Act and Carers today, we are at the heart of carers campaigning – here at LSE, over 50 years ago Mary Webster made the start of this social movement
Mary Webster - London School of Economics

4. Social Work with Carers
Common themes:
Crisis
Conflict
(in)Continence
Cash
Consumer-Directed Care
Carers (non-human)

5. Crisis (social work tasks)
Geographies of carers – social work responses to explain or navigate
UK keen to help carers keep in work (including social workers)
Role of anticipatory care – making decisions in advance & appointing proxies
Holding and watchful waiting
Interested in self-neglect & hoarding
Photo from Caring at a Distance – bridging the gap, Employers for Carers, 2011
But we are beginning to take more account of geography, adapting to social changes of mobility

6. Conflict?
Perhaps the most common pictures of care are in social and cultural spheres

7. Social Work roles in family conflict
Alert & respond to elder abuse risks
Alert & respond to carer stress and distress
Use tools of mediation, family group conferences and legal/persuasive interventions

8. Continence (in) - the Silent Subject
Surprising omission in social work texts and programmes
Offering acceptable help – individual reactions
Open the subject but don’t undermine
Better kit !

9. Our Consumer Directed Care
Carers are eligible for Direct Payments (to meet own needs)
Can also be proxies for disabled person unable to consent /manage them
More active ‘shopping’ in UK wither with cash or provider
Social work role from start, set up agreed plan, to monitoring, review…
NB UK = adults not aged (personal budgets)

10. Non- human Carers – kit not kin?
Japanese 'robot with a heart' will care for the elderly and children… The robot dubbed 'Pepper' will go on sale for £1,150 and uses a cloud-based AI system so that units learn from one another…
The Independent, 16 July 2014
Social Work tasks?
Shopping, using, repair, maintenance, quality … Do we know?
But technology is asking the frontier questions, do you have to be a human to care?

11. Thanks and acknowledgements
Thanks for listening and thanks to my research colleagues and our funders – the Department of Health – views are my own