Who’s Involved

1. A Major Collaborative Research Initiative funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Pat Armstrong, PhD, Principal Investigator, York University

2. Who’s Involved • 26 academic co-investigators • 12 disciplines • Six countries • Five union partners • Two employer association partners • Post-docs, graduate students • Community and advocacy groups

3. Our Approach • to treat both providers and residents with dignity and respect • to understand care as a relationship • to take differences and equity into account

4. Four theme areas: Group members switch for years 4 to 6

5. Guiding Questions • What care approaches support long-term care as a viable, desirable and equitable option for individuals, families and caregivers? • What kinds of work organization are most promising in meeting the needs and balance the rights of residents, providers, families and communities? • What promising practices to accountability nurture care and inspire quality workplace relations in long-term residential facilities? • What financing and ownership models are promising in ensuring equitable access to quality long-term residential care while reducing the offloading of both material and other costs onto workers, employers, families or individuals?

6. Overarching Methods Layers: 1. Mapping 2. Design phase 3. Rapid Ethnographies 4. Data analysis and integration

7. Methodological Assumptions • Interdisciplinary approaches apply different lens • Fresh eyes help us see different aspects, collective work central • Multiple methods capture complexity as well as multiple views • Those who do the work provide an authentic picture • Attend to noises and silences • Some consistency and considerable flexibility

8. Why Promising Practices? • Context matters, and at multiple levels. It includes political economy, geography, social and physical structures and history • Conditions of work are conditions of care • Entire range of players matter; researchers, managers, unions, volunteers, family, residents, all employees, representatives of families, residents, workers, regulators

9. Why Promising Practices? • Relationships among different categories of workers are critical to care • Gender, racialization, class, sexuality matter • Time matters: time of day, of life, of job tenure; time for tasks • Not only physical spaces and community locations but also sounds, light, smell, crowding, art, clothing

10. Why Promising Practices? • Looking for promising practices also involves recognizing negative practices, asking for whom they are promising, under what conditions; being open to surprises • Recognizing tensions and contradictions within and outside residences

11. Tensions • Medical vs social (including architecture) • Home vs institution (whose home?) • Regulations vs trust • Risk vs autonomy • Control vsresponsibilization • Specialized vs general; culturally specific vs inclusive • Large vs small • Privacy vs community • Ability vs disability • Individual vs structures

12. THANK YOU