Participation and Cooperation: An Approach to Productive Aging for Institutional Care Service in F Resident

Institutional care service is an important part of the elderly welfare system aiming at improving the quality of life of the elderly. In the resource-input type of the welfare service, care-givers tend to treat the older people as vulnerable groups and to ignore their abilities and value. Based on the materials obtained from the observations and interviews in F Social Welfare Institution, the “functioning” of the elderly is described to reflect their identity pursuit of self-integrity, namely the elderly’s agency, constituting the impetus of their involvement in institutional service. In the service field, care-givers and care-receivers, as the actors in contact, gather to build the “life world” during care service with the subjective recognition and interaction practice, which becomes the foundation of the Participation and Cooperation between the aged and the organizational workers. Accordingly by way of self-care and participating in service the elderly construct the Participation and Cooperation in Context with the care-givers together, which contributes to both the old persons themselves and the resident, and to reaching the elderly’s “productivity” ultimately. Then the elder’s participation and their cooperation with care-givers are meant to be an approach to Productive Aging in Institutional Care service.