How can we re-imagine long-term residential care by learning from and with other countries to identify promising practices for thinking about, planning, and organizing care?

Our collaborative interdisciplinary, international research team travelled to 6 countries (Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Sweden, Norway, and Germany) in search of promising practices for thinking about, planning and organizing long-term residential care that allow residents and their care providers to flourish and be treated with dignity and respect.

Residential care facilities are home to some of the most vulnerable citizens and the workplace for paid and unpaid providers, most of whom are women and many from racialized communities. How we treat this vulnerable population and their care providers is a critical indicator of our approach to equity and social justice, as well as to care. 

The research was divided into four overlapping areas – Approaches to Care, Work Organization, Accountability, and Financing and Ownership – to deal with the complexity in long-term residential care. Though the project has ended, the work continues.