Resilience in an Ageing Society

Anne Chappell and Elaine WelshDepartment of Criminal Justice and Social StudiesBuckinghamshire New UniversitySPA Conference July2014

Background

• Ageing society in the UK (ONS 2011)

2014: 1 in 6 over 65; 2050: 1 in 4 over 65

• Increasing policy focus on how to foster healthy and active ageing:

‘We will make active ageing the norm rather than the exception’ (HM Government 2010, p7)

• Resilience refers to how an individual is able to navigate life events and respond to adversity (Ungar 2008)

The Meaning of Resilience•Comparatively new area of debate that has generated a vast literature across a wide range of academic disciplines and policy arenas

•We would argue that the emergence of “resilience” is related to the shift from Modernity to Late Modernity with its preoccupations of individualisation, globalisation, the emergence of new risks and the lack of faith in the capacity of the state to deal with these risks

•People are obliged to assume more responsibility through the creation of the ‘tight-rope biography’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002, p3)

•In terms of welfare, people must anticipate risk and be adaptable and proactive in their response to risk

•This has created space for the conceptualisation of how individuals can/should demonstrate agency and reflexivity when faced with adversity (both in the past and in relation to managing future adversity)

The Meaning of ResilienceChildhood and Youth literature:

•Particularly extensive literature here that focuses on how to protect and support children and young people from adversity (e.g. neglect) and support them through difficult circumstances so that they may develop into competent adults

•Psychiatric approaches – Rutter’s work on child development

•Genetic and environmental influences

•Importance of replicated behaviours that make people sensitive to accumulated risk (Rutter 1999)

•“Causal chain effect” and “turning point” decisions (Rutter 2007)

•Serious childhood adversity may mean lifelong psychopathological consequences

The Meaning of Resilience•Social Work approaches – work of Ungar and Gilligan

•More explicit concern for the impact of wider environment on children at risk of adversity

•Ungar uses an ecological model of resilience that emphases the child’s socio-cultural context and how resilience might be expressed within the context of that child’s life

•Practitioners must recognise positive outcomes as culturally normative

•Resilience is non-linear and undulating (Ungar 2011)

•Children need support from adults (family members, professionals, other carers) to foster resilience (Gilligan 2009)

•‘There is no resilience based alternative to policy based on justice and serving needs’ (Gilligan, 2003, p3)

•The resilience “vaccination” does not exist (Gilligan 2003)

The Meaning of Resilience Resilience and the Wellbeing Agenda

•Part of broad health and wellbeing agenda of UN and UK government

•Traditional measure of progress like GDP do not capture “wellbeing” and “happiness”

•Emergence of a more holistic view of health that includes mental health

•Global gains in life expectancy, greater numbers of elderly people and anticipated rise in chronic health conditions

•Economic approaches - Commission on Wellbeing (2014)

•Include psychosocial measures in assessment of policy impact

•Teach resilience in schools to make schools happier places for learning

•Some justification for welfare conditionality as work promotes wellbeing

The Meaning of Resilience•Rise of positive psychology has drawn particular attention to debate about resilience

•Identification of strengths that enable people to flourish

•Strong links to policy notably through work of Seligman (2011)

•Resilience based training programme for US army (prompted by concern over poor job prospects and mental health breakdown when people leave military service)

•Argument that resilience can be taught via modification of thought processes to make people better at living their lives

•Demonstrates key element of Late Modernity - the requirement for a reflexive awareness of the self, a constant emotional self-audit

•This can become ‘an almost insurmountable burden, a source of despair rather than self-enrichment’ (Giddens, 1991, p86)

Research Overview•Less research on older people and resilience but evidence that their perspectives can especially multidimensional and nuanced (Wild et al 2010)

•Exploring perspectives of older people can establish a contextualised understanding of meaning of resilience, identify effective support this group and factors earlier in the lifecourse that support resilience

•Small qualitative study which takes a life story approachSettings Focus groups Face to face

interviewsAge range Gender

A (Day Centre) 1 2 79-82 Female - 9 Male - 2B (Activity

Club)1 6 64-85

Preliminary Findings: Relationality• Relationality refers to the practices, re/negotiation, compromise and emotional connectedness of people’s relationships that contextualise their lives and shape their interactions (see Smart 2007)

• Our preliminary data reveal a strong sense of self from our research participants shaped by context, environment and relationships (across space and time)

•Clear that people thought a great deal about their own childhoods and relationships with their families to construct a wider narrative to help them give meaning to difficult or risky life events (Hildon et al 2008)

One respondent spoke fondly about how her mother had looked after her when she contracted polio as a child:

“My mum encouraged me to do everything for myself ... I don’t want to give in to all this pain” (Interview, Sarah, 80 years)

Another respondent had migrated to the UK in the 1960’s:

“My grandmother encouraged me ....She said ‘Go forward, do things you must do in your life. Don’t sit and look back.’” (Interview, Tanya, 74 years)

•Reflecting on these narratives could be a source of strength

Relationality• Our respondents identified family and friends as a vital support:

“I mean I’ve had lots and lots of problems. But always there, and I’ve always had support of friends and family and I think they take me... you know, a great deal of help and family help and friends especially as well.” (Interview, Sarah, 80)

• However, there was also the recognition that, as people age, it is harder to make new friends. It is easier to make friends when children are young and people have social contacts through their children (e.g. school, clubs):

• “In my young days, I always used to say that it’s school and church that were the two means of introducing yourself to the community .... As you get older, you don’t have that connection with the school and it is harder to fit into your environment”. (Interview, Nina, 70 years)

• Refers back to Ungar’s (2011) argument that resilience is non-linear – friends are an important source of support that help people to be resilient, but there are times in people’s lives when it is difficult to make/sustain friendships

Importance of services

Loneliness was a significant fear:

“ I think the worst scenario is loneliness” (Focus group 2)

The issue of the loneliness of older people is reinforced as a major policy concern:

‘Exploring how activities and services can maintain and build on social networks is key to maintaining wellbeing within the community’ (ILC/Age UK 2014, p2)

Access to services provides supportive relationships, not just in the here and now, but from many years ago. In a clear echo of Gilligan (2003), Doreen talked about her unhappy childhood where she did not feel loved. While a teenager, she had got into trouble with the police and was referred to a probation officer whom she regards as a turning point in her life:

“She was fabulous. She gave me unconditional love and regard and I felt really valued and not judged and found wanting.”(Interview, Doreen, 73 years)

Social capital & resourcesOur respondents were very aware that skills and resources obtained during their working lives were important in providing both the confidence and money to support them in old age:

“I mean there are some people here (Day Centre) that just wouldn’t be able to pay ….. I mean I can go to the theatre if I want to and I can afford a taxi down and back, but a lot of them can’t …. They become very introverted, don’t they? Whereas I’m very extrovert….. I talk and I do things and there we are” (Interview, Edna, 83 years)

“I started up a group to do exercises on a Thursday night .... Well I think if you’re going to take something on .... You have to have a lot of knowledge and the ability to organise. With my job, I was meeting strange people all the time .... new people ...” (Interview, Edna, 83 years)

“I’ve got good organisational skills .... I feel I need to give something or I feel it’s very shallow so I like to do a few voluntary things so that I can put something back in” (Interview, Doreen, 73 years)

Fatigue Tanya’s husband has bi-polar disorder and she is his carer. She spoke of how she tries not to talk too much to her adult children about the situation at home as she knows they have their own lives and it will cause them worry:

‘And therefore the pressure is more on me by protecting them. But I think I’m becoming to be less resilient now because, you know, when the same thing goes on for so long and, of course, you know, as you grow older, maybe your view changes or your resilience is lower, because you’re not that person, you know, sort of, who gets up at six o’clock in the morning and go to work and forget about things, you know. So that does affect you a lot more now...’ (Interview, Tanya, 74 years)

We are mindful of research that suggests that people may be worn down by constant adversity (see CRSER 2011’s research with people experiencing entrenched poverty).

Resilience is not a limitless resource.

Resilience and Reflexivity•Our respondents also discussed resilience in ways that capture Giddens (1991) reflexive practices of late modernity that require constant revision and self-analysis:

‘It’s a bit like what I was saying, I’m aware of my surroundings and I’m careful or little flags appear in my head that sort of say, ‘Right you’d better watch this and that,’ and these people don’t seem to have these flags.’ (Interview, Bill, 73)

‘And I think one big thing for me probably about resilience is working through these issues and not carrying all this baggage. I think that’s been very important for me anyway to do that.’ (Interview, Doreen, 73)

‘I think knowledge is power. Knowledge, I think whatever your problem is, find out as much as you can. Understand a problem. And then once you understand, that’s half, you’re half way there once you understand it...Think about it, yes and don’t make rushed decisions’. (Interview, Nina, 70)

•These data suggest resilience require us to be self-aware and reflect on the situations in which we find ourselves. Our participants recognise the need to take on new knowledge and adapt in order to make sense of their experiences of ageing.

Conclusions•The prominence of resilience relates to preoccupations of late modernity regarding individualisation, reflexivity and constructing a narrative of the self

•There are a broad range of interpretations of what resilience means and how it should translate into policy.

•Thus, it can be used to promote individual responsibility and self-awareness in a way that people can acquire through training programmes or it can highlight relationality, social capital and the significance of support from service providers

•The preliminary data from this research underline the importance for resilience of relationships with family and friends (in the past as well as the present), the space to be with other people, as well as the warning that resilience is not a linear or limitless resource

References Beck U. and Beck-Gernsheim E. (2002) Individualization, London:Sage

CRESR (2011) Living through Challenges in Low Income Neighbourhoods: Change, continuity, contrast, Centre for Regional and Economic and Social Research/JRF

Commission on Wellbeing and Policy (2014) Wellbeing and Policy, The Legatum Institute

Giddens A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and society in the late modern age, Cambridge: Polity

Gilligan R. (2003) Promoting Children’s Resilience – Some Reflections, Paper Presented at the launch event for the Glasgow Centre for the Child and Society

Gilligan R. (2009) Promoting Resilience: Supporting children and young people who are in care, adopted or in need, London: BAAF

HM Government 2010 Healthy Lives, Healthy People: Our strategy for public health in England (London: Department of Health)

Hildon Z., Smith G., Metuveli G. and Blane D. (2008) Understanding Resilience and Adversity in Older Age, Sociology of Health and Illness 30 (5) 726-40

ILC/Age UK (2014) http://www.ilcuk.org.uk/index.php/publications/publication_details/community_matters_making_our_communities_ready_for_ageing_a_call_to_action

ONS (2011) http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-for-local-authorities-in-england-and-wales/index.html

Rutter M. (1999) Resilience, Concepts and Findings: Implications for family therapy, Journal of Family Therapy,21, 119–144

Rutter M. (2007) Resilience, Competence and Coping, Child Abuse & Neglect, 31, 205–209

Seligman M. (2011), Flourish: A new understanding of happiness and wellbeing – and how to achieve them, London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing

Smart C. (2007) Personal Life Cambridge: Polity Press

Ungar M. (2011) The social ecology of resilience: addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of a nascent construct, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 81(1)1-17

Ungar M. (2010) Families as Navigators and Negotiators: Facilitating culturally and contextually specific expressions of resilience, Family Process 49 (3) 421-435

Ungar M. (2008) Resilience across Cultures, British Journal of Social Work (38) 218–235

Wild K., Wiles J. and Allen R. (2011), Resilience: thoughts on the value of the concept for critical gerontology, Ageing and Society, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X11001073 pp1-22

World Health Organisation (2012) Health 2020: Leadership for health and well-being in 21st century Europe, Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe