Personalisation and Collaboration: Dual Tensions in Individualised Funding Policy for Older and Disabled Persons

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Published 22nd February 2023

Individualisation of funding is increasingly replacing ‘one-size-fits-all’ models of support for older and disabled people in Australia and internationally. Espoused as a means of breaking down standard service responses and giving autonomy and self-determination to older and disabled people so that supports are personalised and tailored, it has also become synonymous with marketisation of the public sector. A tension is that marketisation and dispersed funding can be a disincentive for the collaborative efforts that are necessary to deliver holistic and better integrated support.

Hopkins researchers, in collaboration with researchers from the Universities of Birmingham and New South Wales, have published a suite of articles investigating personalisation and collaboration for older and disabled people by drawing on examples from Australia and the UK. The articles, which comprise a special themed section in January's edition of the Journal of Social Policy and Society, showcase empirical research and conceptual ideas to provide critical insight into local structures and practices of facilitating connection and integration of supports and care systems,  and examine how countries facing similar challenges of reconciling personalisation and collaboration design policy solutions and to what effect.

 Many of the articles in this special themed section are Open Access, and can be accessed here. 

Authors

Michele Foster

Honorary Adjunct Professor

Eloise Hummell

Samantha Borg