Care Initiative

Green Templeton College’s Care Initiative explores issues associated with care of older people by bringing together people from different disciplinary and professional backgrounds.

The Initiative engages in informed debate and research around the complex issues involved in caring for and with older people. Its general field of interest lies in explicating the policy dimensions of care for older people and developing understanding of the linkages between social care and health care.

The aims of the Initiative are rooted in Green Templeton’s engagement with and commitment to human welfare as a foundational college interest and common concern.

Membership of the Initiative reflects the disciplinary orientations of Green Templeton, drawing together especially scholars and students from the medical sciences, the social sciences and the business and management divisions at Oxford.

The Initiative’s events are designed to appeal to people in the public service and NGO sectors in Oxford (as well as academics from other units in Oxford) and the Initiative has been very successful in assembling a wide community of interest.

The Initiative was launched on Monday 27 October 2014 with a lecture by Sir Andrew Dilnot, Chair of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support.

Activities centre around exploration of the wide ranging issues associated with the challenge of caring in an increasingly ageing society. The Initiative’s signature approach is to view these issues from a multi-faceted perspective, considering philosophical, institutional, resource and policy/service dimensions.

The topics that the Initiative has identified as key include:

  • investments in and costs of social care;
  • innovations in social and health care (with particular reference to online and digital, technological innovations);
  • reimagining and remodelling care;
  • philosophies of care and caring;
  • and the degree to which physical, social and personal environments enable people to live out their lives in the place or places which they consider home.

A ‘state of the art’ interdisciplinary review of the literature on social care for older people in the UK was undertaken in 2016, resulting in the report by Dr Sue Westwood entitled ‘Social care and older people in home and community contexts: a review of existing research and evidence’. Governing Body Fellow Professor Mary Daly and Dr Westwood have written an academic paper (submitted for journal publication) based on findings from the review.

In 2018/19, the Care Initiative undertook a literature review looking at long-term care in a global context. A report by researcher Christina Petsoulas called ‘Thinking about long-term care in a global context – a literature review’ is now available.

Forthcoming events

Future events will appear here

Full list of past events

Contact the Care Initiative

Further information can be requested from:

Professor Mary Daly, University of Oxford
Email: mary.daly@spi.ox.ac.uk

or

Naomi Benson, Green Templeton College
Email: naomi.benson@gtc.ox.ac.uk