Cures en la convivència de persones grans

The following Chapters are the result of the accounting and facilitating work that researcher Lluvi Farré has carried out about the process of conceptualization and organization of a care model that Can 70 group has developed during 2019 in order to design their future senior cohousing project.

Based on the results of the MOVICOMA project –the first study about senior cohousing in Spain- in the introductory chapter the authors show how senior cohousing in Spain is not only a housing problem, but rather a critical response to a way of organizing and understanding care in old age. Unlike other countries such as Denmark, continuity of care through self-management is a key element in the definition of these initiatives throughout the country.

This first Chapter also presents the accounting work that the researcher has carried out by following Can 70 group during the period of one year and also introduces the participatory methodology that has been used and how the group has structured and self-managed their own work about collective care. From the process of reflection and construction carried out by this group, we can see how autonomy, interdependence and especially continuity of care until the end of life are critical issues in senior cohousing initiatives.

The authorship of next sections is the result of a co-writing process driven both by the researcher and the community members of Can 70 and explain key aspects that Can 70 has identified as important dimensions of care involving their senior cohousing project: setting up a mutual support-based community, planning the continuity of care resources and services while they age and anticipating collective processes of coping mourning and death.

In Chapter 2 the authors describe how Can 70 project is organized from the idea of building a mutual suport-based senior cohousing community. Under this premise, the group developed a work to define their own terms of mutual support: by researching and testing different mechanisms that allow them to set and organize the quotidian care and mutual support framework, but at the same time also identifying and recognizing the extent and limits that mutual support practices reveal to the community.

Thus, the third Chapter revolves around how Can 70 conceptualize a scheme based on different levels of care needs in order to organize the incorporation of more specialized care services so they could to respond a wide range of eventualities that may arise. Consequently, their project is also a way of generating continuity mechanisms beyond mutual support that allow them to ensure care until the end of their lifes. This section also presents different resources, tools and models that Can 70 explore for the development of a more specialized care model.

Finally, the authors show throughout the last Chapter the work that Can 70 has carried out to collectively cope death and mourning processes from a care point of view. In this sense, Can 70 places this issue as a very important and novel element for their project, since they thematize coping mourning and death processes as part of their cohousing project, not only as an individual matter.

Farré, Lluvi; Can 70; López, Daniel; Suara SCCL & Sostre Cívic (2020). Cures en la convivència de persones grans. Col·lecció Construïm habitatge cooperatiu. Barcelona: Sostre Cívic.

Reference by chapters: 

López, Daniel; Farré, Lluvi & Can 70 (2020). 1. Introducció: El treball de cures en un cohabitatge sènior. In Cures en la convivència de persones grans (7-15), Barcelona: Sostre Cívic.

Can 70 & Farré, Lluvi (2020). 2. Construint una comunitat de suport mutu. In Cures en la convivència de persones grans (17-30), Barcelona: Sostre Cívic.

Can 70 & Farré, Lluvi (2020). 3. Preveient la continuïtat de les cures en la vellesa. In Cures en la convivència de persones grans (31-42), Barcelona: Sostre Cívic.

Can 70 & Farré, Lluvi (2020). 4. Les cures en relació amb els processos de dol i mort. In Cures en la convivència de persones grans (43-49), Barcelona: Sostre Cívic.