On the Margins of Elderly Care: The Case of an Emerging Social Care Profession

In Switzerland, a shift in favour of aging in place and away from institutionalisation has become the subject of a consensual political discourse, framed in the mid-1990s by federal policy. Since the late 2000s, this policy direction has led to the emergence of a new professional group: social care referents. These professionals are central to a new instrument of these policies – a ‘housing with social care’ for elderly people, that is housing facilities situated in-between institutional care settings and private homes, aimed at delaying or preventing admissions into long-term care structures thanks to the assistance provided by care referents. Although social care referents are expected to play a key role in implementing new elder care policies, they are positioned at the margins of established professions within home care services. Their work, role and place within the division of labour remain vaguely defined and ambiguous, leading to a lack of social and financial recognition.

This paper seeks to examine how social care workers in this emerging profession in the field of elderly care construct their professional identity. Through an exploration of their lived experiences, we identify how social referents define, organise, negotiate, and give meaning to their work, as well as three distinct ways in which they conceive and embody their role. We show how, in managing the daily implementation of the policy objectives, these professionals find themselves at the centre of the tensions created by these policies.

We draw on in-depth interviews conducted with 30 referents and a questionnaire distributed to all identified professionals in French-speaking Switzerland.