"No Place Like Home" is the first major output of the Social Policy and Ageing Research Centre at Trinity College Dublin. The Centre was established in 2005 with the view to producing and disseminating policy-relevant research in the area of ageing. The domiciliary (in-home) care for older people was selected as the initial flagship project because it represents a policy area of growing concern both in the Irish and international contexts. While much rhetorical emphasis is placed on the importance of enabling older people with care needs to remain living in their own homes (not in the least due to the increasing perception that many older people are in inappropriate institutional care settings in hospitals and nursing homes), the absence of baseline data and lack of a clear understanding of policy structures constitute significant obstacles to achieving this aim. This study, conducted in August 2005-April 2006, involved interviewing 125 informants who are closely involved in planning, financing and delivering home care to older persons across Dublin.
It represents the first systematic attempt in the Irish context to map out the respective roles and characteristics of the public, private and non-profit sector organisations involved in financing and delivering home care to older people. The book maps out the considerable shifts in the organisation and delivery of domiciliary care services for older persons over the last 10 years. A historical account is given of the shift from policy emphasis on institutional to domiciliary care. The increasing complexity of the 'care mix' that has resulted from changes in the non-profit (formerly voluntary) sector and the emergence of the private sector care agencies, and their relationship to the State as purchaser of care services are analysed. While the book is highly policy-relevant and includes a number of recommendations for changes in policy and practices, it also makes a major contribution to theory-building and historical analysis in the area of social care.
As a result, the book is of interest to academic, policy and practitioner audiences, as well as postgraduate and undergraduate students, in the areas of social policy, politics, history of care services (the role of the voluntary sector in particular), sociology and social work. "No Place Like Home" fills a vacuum in an area that has changed rapidly and remained under-researched until now.