[Partnership in the context of care dependency]. / (Ehe­)Partnerschaft im Kontext der Pflegebedürftigkeit.

BACKGROUND: Partners are one of the largest groups of caring relatives in Germany and are therefore very important for the maintenance of the German care system. For this reason, this article deals with coping with care situations in partnerships as well as with resources and ambivalences. OBJECTIVE: The background to this article is the project "Care in the neighborhood" (PiQ). This study investigated the question of how the various home care settings of older people are organized and what problems and needs become visible in the process. This article focuses on caregiving for partners. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Based on a case contrastive evaluation of guideline-supported individual and couple interviews, strategies of the couples for coping with the care situation were reconstructed. In addition to the interviews the analysis of egocentric network cards showed the problem areas and resources of the couples RESULTS: The caring partners in this sample showed different strategies for maintaining the relationship. In addition, there were ambivalences with respect to assumed and often exclusively positively connoted resources of the support network. CONCLUSION: This article highlights the special situation of caring partners. Based on the findings implications for the practice and (local) care policy are derived for improving the situation of older caregiving partners and thus their respective living conditions.

[Municipalities as places for social work for the elderly]. / Kommunen als Orte Sozialer Altenarbeit.

Against the background of social and demographic changes, this article addresses the design and organization of processes of aging within municipal contexts. It is assumed that the renaissance of the local communal situation corresponds to processes of individualization and subjectivation, which are characteristic for (post)industrial western societies, and that this development is one of the reasons that community-based social work is regaining importance. A case study of social work for the elderly in a municipality of the Ruhr area, which is imbedded in a municipal senior citizens policy concept, illustrates this assumption. The conclusion identifies the scope of actions for social work for the elderly as well as their limitations.