You are here

Care Matters
Share

Care Matters
Concepts, Practice and Research in Health and Social Care

Edited by:

February 1999 | 205 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
How can we make sense of the varying concepts of care and of the many forms care takes in practice? How can "good" care be defined and evaluated? The editors draw on a range of academic disciplines, including sociology, social policy, psychology, history, geography, social work, and nursing to address these questions. Care Matters considers whether shared meanings in the concept of care can still be found across differences of family and paid care, health and social care, perspectives "caregiver" and "cared for", and the experiences of different client groups. The contributors identify commonalties in the form of concerns about personal empowerment, about choice and self esteem, about the balance needed between independence, interdependence, and dependency. What also emerges is the relevance of such issues for those giving as well as receiving care. Care Matters points to the importance of continuing to learn directly from experiences of giving and receiving care, drawing out any core principles only cautiously against a backdrop of this wide range of participating voices. This discussion of care will be essential reading for academics and students of social work, nursing, disability studies, health and social studies, and social policy.

Ann Brechin
Introduction
Dorothy Atkinson
Living in Residential Care
John Adams, Joanna Bornat and Mary Prickett
Discovering the Present in Stories about the Past
Jeanne Katz
Terminal Care or Terminal Carelessness
Stan Tucker and Penny Liddiard
Young Carers
Jill Reynolds and Jan Walmsley
Care, Support or Something Else?
John Swain and Sally French
Normality and Disabling Care
Moyra Sidell
Treatment or Tender Loving Care
Sheila M Peace
Caring in Place
Celia Davies
Caregiving,Carework and Professional Care
Julia Johnson
The Emergence of Care as a Policy
Linda J Jones
Changing Health Care
Ann Brechin
What Makes for Good Care

'The impact of [the] opening chapters, all of which include the recipient's perspective, is to raise awareness of issues to be discussed later in the book. The remaining chapters take a much more theoretical approach, but again raise improtant and current issues about the nature and context of caring. Each chapter provides a clear analysis of the debate from a particular theoretical perspective.

Overall, I found the book interesting and challenging. [I]t does address very relevant and important issues and leaves the reader with a broader understanding of the nature of care and current debates about how that care should be provided. [T]he editors are able to draw out common issues and conceptualisations across a wide range of caring experiences and contexts - making the text relevant for all involved in care regardless of the context of client group. This is probably the book's main strength.

By taking this approach the editors are able to relate theory and practice in a way that will have meaning for readers from different disciplines working in a variety of different caring contexts' - Quality in Ageing - Policy, Practice and Research