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Successful aging is a prominent theory that describes the aging process and the expected activities and behaviors older adults should engage in or exhibit to age successfully. Although this theory is used to gauge the extent to which older adults are aging successfully, older adults’ experiences and perspectives of what successful aging means to them are missing from the theory. A five-step scoping review framework was used to explore and synthesize the existing research that investigated older adults’ perspectives on successful aging. Twelve main themes were found and ranged from the importance of social relationships and interactions to having a good death. Findings indicated older adults do not define successful aging as strictly as is found in the literature. Old age and the aging process from the views of older adults provide future directions for theory development and research.

The anticipated change of social work regulator in England from the Health and Care Professions Council to Social Work England in 2019 will herald the third, national regulator in seven years for the social work profession. Social Work England will be a new, bespoke, professionally specific regulator established as a non-departmental public body with a primary objective to protect the public. Looking globally, we can observe different approaches to the regulation of the social work profession—and many different stages of the profession’s regulatory journey between countries. Using a comparative policy analysis approach and case studies, this article looks more closely at three countries’ arrangements and attempts to understand why regulation might take the shape it does in each country. The case studies examine England, the USA (as this has a state approach, we focus on New York) and New Zealand, with contributions from qualified social work authors located within each country. We consider that there are three key elements to apply to analysis: definition of role and function, the construction of the public interest and the attitude to risk.