Naughton‐Doe, R., Cameron, A. and Carpenter, J. (2021) Timebanking and the co‐production of preventive social care with adults; what can we learn from the challenges of implementing person‐to‐person timebanks in England? Health & Social Care in the Community, 29 (5). pp. 1285-1295. ISSN 0966-0410
Abstract
This paper explores the potential contribution of timebanking, an innovative volunteering scheme, to the co-production of preventive social care with adults in England. Interest in volunteering in social care has increased as one proposed solution to the international crisis of a rising demand for services in juxtaposition with decreased resources. Volunteering has been particularly promoted in preventive services that prevent or delay care needs arising. Despite sustained interest in volunteering and co-production in social care, little is known about how theory translates into practice. Reporting implementation data from a Realistic Evaluation of six case studies in England, this paper explores one volunteering scheme, timebanking. The research explores how timebanks were working, what contribution they can make to adult
social care, and whether they are an example of co-production. Data collected included interviews, focus groups or open question responses on surveys from 84 timebank members, and semi-structured interviews with 13 timebank staff. Each timebank was visited at least twice, and all timebank activity was analysed for a period of 12 months. Data were triangulated to improve reliability. The research found that in practice, timebanks were not working as described in theory, there were small
numbers of person-to-person exchanges and some timebanks had abandoned this exchange model. Timebanks faced significant implementation challenges including managing risk and safeguarding and the associated bureaucracy, a paternalistic professional culture and the complexity of the timebank mechanism which required adequate resources. Lessons for timebanks are identified, as well as transferable lessons about co-production and volunteering in social care if such schemes are to be successful in the future.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. Health and Social Care in the Community published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | co‐production; innovation; mutual‐aid; prevention; risk‐management; timebank; volunteering |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Sociological Studies (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 05 Oct 2020 15:48 |
Last Modified: | 27 Jan 2022 12:24 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/hsc.13166 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:165739 |