Reflections on Community Development, Preventative Care, and Ageing

Abstract

Recently there has been a chorus of demands to “re‐imagine” social care. Community and faith‐based organisations, policy, and academic communities are engaged in discussions on issues such as human rights for older populations, the future of residential care, how to better support family/community care, and strengthen local place‐based community development. Moreover, the Covid‐19 pandemic has added new urgency to this mission, galvanizing developments for change and collective action and exposing public troubles of endemic system failings, prevailing discourses of ageism, tensions with health systems, and limitations of market models of care and support. Prevention is a central social welfare principle in many countries. It is associated with policy and practices that aim to meet social care needs early and is explored in this thematic issue.