Small Board-and-Care Homes: Residential Care in Transition

Small board-and-care homes have existed informally for many years as alternative settings for long-term care. Typical residents have been discharged from another facility with some physical or mental impairment. Most are women over the age of 75 with minimal financial or social resources. While these homes are often viewed negatively--as warehouses for the ill and underprivileged--they are now growing in numbers and receiving increased attention for their ability to provide a loving environment and customized care at a modest cost. Small Board-and-Care Homes is the first book to examine these settings from the perspectives of their operators and residents. Based on ten years of research in Baltimore and Cleveland, it offers a comprehensive look at an increasingly important option for residential care: who lives in them, who operates them, what services are delivered, what are the economics of their operation, and how do residents and operators perceive their situations. The authors also examine issues such as gender and employment, since the operators are usually women who receive little pay and no benefits for providing a vital service in their own homes--outside the formal systems of health care and human services. The final chapter looks at policy implications: should these homes follow the institutional, medical model of nursing homes and strict regulation, or are they more analogous to the less-regulated, personalized child care or home care?Morgan, Leslie A. is the author of 'Small Board-and-Care Homes: Residential Care in Transition' with ISBN 9780801849961 and ISBN 0801849969.