UNIT 1 : CONCEPTS

UNIT 1 : CONCEPTS

1. FAMILY CARERS

   • 'Look after friend, relative, neighbour because of age, sickness or disability' (Directgov, 2006)
     • Unpaid - Do not care as professional/career
   • Save money - £57billion p/year as care would otherwise have to be delivered through professional workers = salaries
     • Cost of care otherwise unnafforadble
   • Carers (recognition and services) Act 1995 - first to officially recognise work of family carers
   • Case study : Ann is a family carer - cares for her father
   • Important to identify to give support
     • Support
       • Carers Allowance
       • Home Responsibility Protection
     • Complicating factors -duration, -frequency - labelling, -networks
       • Case study : Ann 'wife, mother and daughter' not a 'carer'

2. CARE : WOMAN'S ROLE?

   • Tradition
   • Men also care, but most do in later life, e.g. caring for wife, do not have the struggle of balancing caring with looking after family and working
   • Case study : Ann believes it's a woman's role

3. CHANGING FAMILIES

   • Peter Townsend - 'The Family Life of Older People' pub.1957
     • Major factor in elderly lives - relatives
       • Care reciprocated
         • FORBAT: Reciprocation in care relationships (2005)
   • Families central to caring but shared responsibility diminished
     • Greater distances as relatives not close by
       • Smaller families