| This paper focuses on home-based mutual aid for the elderly care in urban community based on time bank.Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods,the achievements and problems of home-based mutual aid model for the elderly care in urban community based on time bank during the development process and mechanisms behind these changes were explored.Thereby,suggestions were proposed to ensure the sustainable development of time bank at urban community.This paper took the H Community Time Bank in Donghu District,Nanchang City as an example,and the operation mode,situation of time bank and its impact on participants were analyzed.The results show that: 1)The basic organizational structure model of H Community Time Bank is constituted by community staff as managers,young elderly as the main service providers,and senior elderly as the main service recipients,and other institutions and non-profit organizations provided some financial support and professional services.In addition,H Community Time Bank also can obtain some economic support from the superior time bank and is subject to its supervision.Time bank managers are the center of this organizational structure,and the director is the center of time bank managers.2)In three years,the time bank of H community has been improved,and the number of volunteers and time currency was increased rapidly.As a consequence,the time bank of H community has been highly recognized by the service recipients,the superior authorities and the society.Even though,H Community Time Bank still has some problems such as inconsistent service procedures at the upper and lower levels,lack of special funds,and heavily depends on a few of active volunteers.3)The H Community Time Bank did not bring economic and political empowerment to the staff though most of them have achieved psychological and social empowerment.Volunteers have achieved social and psychological empowerment,and partially achieved political empowerment,while they did not have economic empowerment at all.The elderly recipients feel more care,have more opportunities to express their opinions and save living costs due to the implementation of Time Bank.In order to promote the sustainable development of community-based mutual aid model for the elderly care,this thesis suggests that the director of time bank should be carefully selected,the superior time bank should develop an information exchange platform that is convenient for the elderly,and provide some special funds to the community time bank,strengthen the recruitment of volunteers and realize the city-level exchange of time currency as soon as possible. |
