11 The role of professionals and service providers in supporting sexuality and intimacy in later life: theoretical and practice perspectives
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Trish Hafford-Letchfield
Abstract
The transformation of intimacy and sexuality issues within historically and culturally dependent institutions is challenging established views about ageing (Bildtgard and Oberg, 2017). Health and social care is one such institution yet to respond fully to the growing empirical evidence on what constitutes a meaningful life for older people interacting with care services in relation to sexuality and intimacies across different sexual and gender identities. Transcending established views about the role of health and social care professionals in providing meaningful engagement and support for older people to fulfil their sexual needs requires providers to recognise opportunities for responding to the complexity of issues arising in care. Being open to the range of people’s relationship situations, and making spaces within assessment and provision of care to enable information and support on sex and intimacy to be made available and to engage proactively with the topic, is beginning to be recognised within workforce development (SfC, 2017). Building on these initiatives involves developing new structures and methods of embedding sexuality within professional education, in policies and care practices and in the commissioning of, and evaluation of, services (Hafford-Letchfield et al, 2010, 2020).
This chapter engages with the literature focusing on what we know or need to know about how professionals and providers within health and social care exchange and interact around sex as a meaningful concept in the provision and quality of care. It focuses on themes that are important to initiating and supporting sexual expression in later life and addresses important transition points where older people are considered ‘vulnerable’ in care services and where their sexual rights are less likely to be promoted or transgressed.
Abstract
The transformation of intimacy and sexuality issues within historically and culturally dependent institutions is challenging established views about ageing (Bildtgard and Oberg, 2017). Health and social care is one such institution yet to respond fully to the growing empirical evidence on what constitutes a meaningful life for older people interacting with care services in relation to sexuality and intimacies across different sexual and gender identities. Transcending established views about the role of health and social care professionals in providing meaningful engagement and support for older people to fulfil their sexual needs requires providers to recognise opportunities for responding to the complexity of issues arising in care. Being open to the range of people’s relationship situations, and making spaces within assessment and provision of care to enable information and support on sex and intimacy to be made available and to engage proactively with the topic, is beginning to be recognised within workforce development (SfC, 2017). Building on these initiatives involves developing new structures and methods of embedding sexuality within professional education, in policies and care practices and in the commissioning of, and evaluation of, services (Hafford-Letchfield et al, 2010, 2020).
This chapter engages with the literature focusing on what we know or need to know about how professionals and providers within health and social care exchange and interact around sex as a meaningful concept in the provision and quality of care. It focuses on themes that are important to initiating and supporting sexual expression in later life and addresses important transition points where older people are considered ‘vulnerable’ in care services and where their sexual rights are less likely to be promoted or transgressed.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- Notes on editors and contributors ix
- Series editors’ introduction xiii
- Foreword xxv
- Introduction to volume two: themes, issues and chapter synopses 1
- Consent and sexual literacy for older people 17
- ‘At YOUR age???!!!’: the constraints of ageist erotophobia on older people’s sexual and intimate relationships 35
- The aesthetic(s) of eroticism in later life 53
- Menopause and the ‘menoboom’: how older women are desexualised by culture 77
- Ageing, physical disability and desexualisation 95
- Ageing, intellectual disability and desexualisation 117
- Dancing in- or out-of-step? Sexual and intimate relationships among heterosexual couples living with Alzheimer’s disease 135
- Older people living in long-term care: no place for old sex? 153
- Ageing and the LGBTI+ community: a case study of Australian care policy 171
- The role of professionals and service providers in supporting sexuality and intimacy in later life: theoretical and practice perspectives 191
- Final reflections: themes and issues arising from the volume on desexualisation in later life 211
- Index 221
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- Notes on editors and contributors ix
- Series editors’ introduction xiii
- Foreword xxv
- Introduction to volume two: themes, issues and chapter synopses 1
- Consent and sexual literacy for older people 17
- ‘At YOUR age???!!!’: the constraints of ageist erotophobia on older people’s sexual and intimate relationships 35
- The aesthetic(s) of eroticism in later life 53
- Menopause and the ‘menoboom’: how older women are desexualised by culture 77
- Ageing, physical disability and desexualisation 95
- Ageing, intellectual disability and desexualisation 117
- Dancing in- or out-of-step? Sexual and intimate relationships among heterosexual couples living with Alzheimer’s disease 135
- Older people living in long-term care: no place for old sex? 153
- Ageing and the LGBTI+ community: a case study of Australian care policy 171
- The role of professionals and service providers in supporting sexuality and intimacy in later life: theoretical and practice perspectives 191
- Final reflections: themes and issues arising from the volume on desexualisation in later life 211
- Index 221
