Developments that support innovation in aged care: Ageing well - A social participation and engagement tool

The provision of community care services is a central way of supporting older adults to remain connected with their communities and prevent social isolation and loneliness.

However, there is rather limited research on how frail older adults receiving community care services participate in community life.

Targeting this area might present the greatest opportunity to improve clients’ quality of life and increase social participation.

We aim to:
1. Evaluate the implementation of social participation and quality of life tools in community aged care assessments.
2. Ascertain the levels of social participation and quality of life for a sample of Uniting community aged care clients.
3. Measure the association between the delivery of community aged care services, social participation and quality of life.
4. Utilise the findings to provide recommendations of potential strategies that could be implemented in the future to improve social participation.

Design and Method
We seek to evaluate the implementation of the following two validated survey tools as part of routine assessments for approximately 1200 community aged care clients to assess social participation and quality of life:

1. The Australian Community Participation Questionnaire (ACPQ; Berry, 2007)
2. The ICEpop CAPability Index (ICECAP-0)
The survey tools will be implemented in three waves using an iterative process. During the implementation phase interviews with Uniting clients and support staff will be conducted to gauge their views and opinions on the survey tools, and the impact they have had.

Potential benefits can include:

1. Meaningful outcome indicators to assess the effects of community service provision on social participation and quality of life.
2. Identify individual or groups of clients who may benefit from more, or a different combination of services, to improve their social participation and quality of life.
3. Assess the effects of increasing social participation and quality of life on sentinel health events and use of health services.