Finding Residential Resources on the Internet
Finding information about residential care on the Internet is not, at first sight, an easy task. Residential work has always been the poor relation to professional social work, psychology, or medicine. Finding relevant research, dedicated training, or sources of advice, information and guidance has always been problematic.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is one of the major grant awarding bodies in the USA. It describes its mission as being "to improve the health and health care of all Americans".
Like other grant giving agencies, the RWJF supports a wide range of services. While this may involve some uses of residential care, the RWJF is not obviously a major player in this field. However, its website provides an excellent example of the sorts of hidden information gems which can be found.
Residential care draws on a wide range of skills and talents: its success lies in teamwork and the imaginative combination of disparate disciplines, knowledge, and personalities. Indeed, a creative imagination and the ability to manage creativity are two of the foundations to good residential work. That means keeping an open mind and learning to draw together ideas from different disciplines and sources.
The RWJF website contains some excellent material and links which could (and should) be of use to all involved in residential care - not just health specialists or Americans.
The RWJF pursues three strategic initiatives - Access to Care, Substance Abuse, and Chronic Care.
Access to Care is an issue which concerns all residential workers. Who gets the services and who doesn't? How do you cope with scarce resources? Who organises the gatekeeping ? A comparative look at the lessons drawn by the RWJF may be of interest to care managers the world over. There is instructive information here.
Substance Abuse - again there is excellent material here, particularly on smoking and young people. Everyone involved in residential care should approach tobacco as an addictive drug and as a serious danger to health (of both residents and workers). To the extent that use of tobacco pervades all societies, all residential workers face problems in the management of substance abuse.
However, it is perhaps the RWJF's involvement in Chronic Care which has greatest relevance for residential workers. The US health care system focuses on Acute Care - short term, curable illnesses, injuries, or conditions. Chronic, long-term, incurable conditions are of secondary importance - and the more any health care system is influenced by a market economy, the more that market will concentrate on profitable, short-term cases.
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