The report introduces the concepts of social innovation and engages the community to create proper social health and wellbeing with ease and effectiveness. The topic will illustrate about the various social innovation concepts along with the theory of community engagement required to improve the lives of people and benefit the organization and community as a whole too. The social innovation by the organization named The Australian Centre for Social Innovation is aimed at the creation, development, adoption and integration of the existing and new systems, concepts and management of business practices to put the people and planet at first (tacsi.org.au 2018). The members associated with the social innovation at The Australian Centre for Social Innovation and are working across the various sectors have focused on the creation of a better world and health and meeting the social needs.
The social innovation aims at the management of various strategies, concepts, ideas and concepts within the organization to fulfill the social needs and requirements, furthermore manage the working conditions, provide education or does something good for the development of community along with proper management of health and wellbeing too. The present topic prioritizes on the social innovation through redesigning ageing and promoting Innovation Age for enhancing the lives of elderly people and making them more engaged with the community as a whole. In the recent years, there has been increase in the development of social innovations considering the theories and practices managed to respond to the social issues and challenges (Herrera 2015). There are multiple theories including the disengagement theory, activity theory, all of which are related to the productive ageing. All these theories and concepts can not only explain the concepts of innovation ageing, but will also demonstrate the use of various information and communication technologies, i.e., ICTs such as the inclusion of automation procedures, robotics and new health and long term models for the development and governance of age-friendly environment and public engagement of the elderly individuals into the productive services provided by the community organizations and the public nowadays (Grimm et al. 2013). There are multiple actors who are responsible or managing the social innovation such as the community groups, charities, businesses, Government and combining all these as well to handle the social issues and promote health and life long benefits to the elderly people.
The ageing disengagement theory enables mutual withdrawal from various activities like disengagement, which result in lack of interaction between the ageing person and other people within the social system. It is natural that with increasing ages, the older individuals withdraw from the society and this results in social exclusion. The disengagement theory, formulated by Cummin and Henry, enables disengaging process associated with the damage of skills and abilities, which can result in training the young adults and make them take over the roles played by the people who disengage (Mount and Martinez 2014).
The guide to effective participation and engagement covers various aspects including the management of information, consultation, making decisions together, acting together as an unit and finally supporting the independent interests of the community at large. The community engagement theory enables focusing on the major aspects including the planning and decision making, development of community consisting of elderly individuals and engaging the people in service delivery and accomplishes the business goals and objectives with ease and effectiveness (Mirvis et al. 2016). The planning and decision making process enables managing the local, state and national Government levels along with the involvement of Government agencies to engage communities and make the ageing population lead a better and health life. The community development is an integral aspect of community engagement that can not only make the people within the community aware of the procedures to manage the ageing population, but also integrating the strength based practices with the business goals and objectives of The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (BOSIO 2014).
The Australian Centre for Social Innovation enables partnership working with other companies to improve the way the elderly people can live with increasing age. The company has collaborated with the elderly people and supported the NGOs, Government bodies, business organizations and charity foundations to re-organize or strengthen the approaches for dealing with the issues such as diversity in housing, aged care and end of life. For the last few years, the individuals living in Australia aged over 75 years have been doubled. The baby boomers generation is considered as the wealthiest and those with the most proper health conditions (Riva, Marsan and Grassi 2014). Though it can be see that the baby boomers cannot change the ageing, still it will create an impact on the economy of Australia and benefit the society as a whole. The vision of The Australian Centre for Social Innovation is to believe that the people in Australia have the rights to age in a proper way and not just those individuals who can afford to do it.
The social innovation approach involves creating scopes and opportunities for them to spend time at homes, streets, parks and in other places for understanding the future that the elderly individuals want while progressing their age. It can be difficult for the elderly individuals in the future to cope up with and deal with critical issues like disengagement and social exclusion. Often they are being discriminated and neglected by their families and friends, which makes them feel lonely and not being able to afford the necessities required to age well (Brooke et al. 2013). Arranging proper homes for the ageing people can be one of the major issues experienced while handling the ageing community. The social innovation approach by TACSI enables the creation of new models and concepts for the ownership of homes that can not only guarantee the security of their tenure, but will also manage proper support through sustainable financing options provided to the ageing people within the community. The designing and development of housing and urban architectures can increase the social connectedness and make the people communicate with each other consistently for improving the overall health and wellbeing of people within the community (Engel et al. 2014). The development of a social housing system can enhance the abilities of individuals to gain access to the housing in case they are neglected by their families due to their age, furthermore adapt to the changing needs of the community and ensure proper connection between the people within the ageing community. TACSI has considered social innovation by prioritizing on the essential components including the ageing people and provide them with both physical and financial sustainability support so that they can live independently in the future without needing any support from others (Botero and Hyysalo 2013).
Strengths · The social innovation approach has supported the ageing community to access good quality housing at affordable prices. · Improved health and wellbeing through both physical and financial support · Absence of social exclusion, due to which the ageing people could interact with each other and thus facilitate community engagement towards the ageing community as well. · With the social innovation approach, home is considered as an expression, an asset and a gateway, which allows the people to express themselves, enhance the reliability of tenure and create better access points for remaining connected with people and the community (Boudiny 2013). · Changes and improvements in legislative frameworks for increasing the outcomes for older tenants and provide the older women with safe and secured living conditions. |
Weaknesses · The social innovation approach is time consuming and complex as well · The affordability for the housing for older individuals have declined, which can be one of the major weakness of the social innovation approach · Lack of awareness among the people regarding the housing affordability · Though the social innovation approach is implemented, still the elderly individuals are neglected due to lack of physical and financial support (tacsi.org.au 2018). |
Opportunities · Creating scopes for changing the legislative frameworks and improve the outcomes for older individuals. · Developing new approaches that can enable the older women to create good, convenient and safe living situations. · The behavioral approach is established to develop the social capabilities of the individuals who may be subjected to risks of negligence and can face social exclusion. |
Threats · Threats could be the lack of collaboration and partnership working · Due to lack of knowledge and information, the people might face difficulties to work according to the social innovation approach (Toepoel 2013). |
The political factors include considering the influence created by the Government agencies and other regulatory bodies that can affect the business functioning and implement the Social innovation and community engagement theories for promoting social innovation approach and ensure successful management of ageing community by providing them with enough help and financial support through proper funding and investments. The external agencies and makers of policies have allowed the company to maintain proper values, culture and ethics to ensure that the social innovation approaches are delivered to the clients properly, furthermore generate revenue through the financial support provided by the Government agencies to improve the economic growth f the country. The social factors include creating employment opportunities for many people work for the company and deliver fulfill the requirements of clients for social cause and benefits (tacsi.org.au 2018). The technological advancements have helped in implementing ICT to support steady business functioning along with wider reach to the areas to identify the numbers of elderly individuals. The legal factors include abiding by the laws, rules and regulations implemented by the Government to ensure successful business functioning whereas the environmental factors include the business’ contributing towards the protection of environment and keeping it healthy for the people to live in within the community.
One of the major challenges can be the ageing population, because of which, various new programs, initiatives related to the social innovations have been adopted to respond to the negative outcomes. Lack of employment opportunities while working as a baby boomer is another issue while data redundancy could be another challenge faced while implementing the social innovation approach. There could also be increased amounts of risks associated with the employees’ working because of the lack of skills and knowledge among them to drive towards sustainability and could hinder the innovation age too (Herrera 2015). This might affect the volunteering activities negatively and make the social innovation approach unsuccessful as well. Unethical conducts like gaining money for own benefits like gaining money for the approach towards benefiting the ageing population could deteriorate the brand image.
Conclusion
The report focused on the concepts of social innovation approach to start the innovation age and for allowing the ageing population to live well for the rest of their lives. All these ideas of the social innovation were developed with the focus on strengthening the civil society, furthermore ensures dealing with the social issues. The consideration of ageing disengagement theory and social innovation theory further addressed the issues faced by the ageing community and how the theories could assist in promoting lifelong healthy benefits and support for the elderly people. The Australian Centre for Social Innovation formed partnerships with the charities and Government agencies to deal with the issues and ensured proper management of housing and affordability for the older individuals who had been neglected r were subjected to social exclusion.
References
BOSIO, A.C., 2014. Patient engagement: the key to redesign the exchange between the demand and supply for healthcare in the era of active ageing. Active Ageing and Healthy Living: A Human Centered Approach in Research and Innovation as Source of Quality of Life, 203, p.85.
Botero, A. and Hyysalo, S., 2013. Ageing together: Steps towards evolutionary co-design in everyday practices. CoDesign, 9(1), pp.37-54.
Boudiny, K., 2013. ‘Active ageing’: from empty rhetoric to effective policy tool. Ageing & Society, 33(6), pp.1077-1098.
Brooke, E., Goodall, J., Handrus, M. and Mawren, D., 2013. Applying workability in the A ustralian residential aged care context. Australasian journal on ageing, 32(2), pp.130-134.
Engel, N., Van Hoyweghen, I., Krumeich, A. and Van Hoyweghen, I. eds., 2014. Making global health care innovation work: Standardization and localization. Springer.
Grimm, R., Fox, C., Baines, S. and Albertson, K., 2013. Social innovation, an answer to contemporary societal challenges? Locating the concept in theory and practice. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 26(4), pp.436-455.
Herrera, M.E.B., 2015. Creating competitive advantage by institutionalizing corporate social innovation. Journal of Business Research, 68(7), pp.1468-1474.
Mirvis, P., Herrera, M.E.B., Googins, B. and Albareda, L., 2016. Corporate social innovation: How firms learn to innovate for the greater good. Journal of Business Research, 69(11), pp.5014-5021.
Mount, M. and Martinez, M.G., 2014. Social media: A tool for open innovation. California Management Review, 56(4), pp.124-143.
Riva, G., Marsan, P.A. and Grassi, C. eds., 2014. Active ageing and healthy living: A human centered approach in research and innovation as source of quality of life (Vol. 203). IOS press.
tacsi.org.au. (2018). Home | The Australian Centre for Social Innovation. [online] Available at: https://www.tacsi.org.au/ [Accessed 19 Sep. 2018].
Toepoel, V., 2013. Ageing, leisure, and social connectedness: how could leisure help reduce social isolation of older people?. Social indicators research, 113(1), pp.355-372.
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