Facilitating Volunteer Engagement Among Older Adults in Social Services: A Case Study of an Innovative Timebank Program in a Chinese Society

Abstract

Background and Objectives Exploring the roles of older adults as volunteers in social care settings has attracted wide attention to facilitate healthy aging and tackle care workforce constraints. However, there is little knowledge of the mechanism of engaging older adults as volunteers in social care sector. Research Design and Methods The study applies a case study to describe the features of an innovative timebank project, Good Hands, and explore the underlying mechanism of engaging older adults as volunteers in the social care sector. Three focus groups were conducted with 12 older adult volunteers and six advisory group members. Thematic analysis was applied to code and analyze the content of the focus group interviews. Results Three emergent themes were identified as critical components: strong cross-sector collaboration, meaningfulness in voluntary work comprising four subthemes (including capacity optimization, care capacity enhancement, cultivating belonging, and value recognition), and a co-producing environment. Discussion and Implications Volunteer engagement of older adults in the provision of welfare for community-based care for frail peers is discussed, and practice implications are presented.

Aging and Caring: Exploring Older Adults’ Motivation for Informal Caregiving to Other Aging Individuals in Nigeria

“…Listening to the participants’ voices during the data analysis allowed us to examine the patterns, connections, and common themes that describe their motivations for caregiving. We drew a thematic map (see Figure 1 ) to help us understand the relationships among codes and the connections among themes ( 53 ). Meetings were scheduled to enable us to discuss, review, and refine the themes.…”