'Care': moral concept or merely an organisational suffix?
Slapping 'care' on a sign means nothing unless staff spend real time with clients.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The author looked at how agencies use the word 'care.' He asked if the word still means real moral concern or if it is now just a label.
The paper is a think piece. It does not test people or run trials. It argues that big systems turn care into a brand, not a duty.
What they found
The study says 'care' is now a suffix on memos and logos. Managers check boxes instead of building real bonds.
To fix this, staff must shift from an Ethic of Normalcy to an Ethic of Engagement. That means meet the person first, not the file.
How this fits with other research
Sigstad et al. (2025) extends this view. They asked Norwegian bosses what helps adults with ID keep jobs. The answer was daily inclusion and tailored supports, not slogans.
Llewellyn et al. (2010) show the flip side. Older parent-carers mostly rely on themselves and report average health. Services with 'care' on the letterhead still wait for parents to call.
The three papers together say the same thing: real care shows up in action, not in the agency name.
Why it matters
You can audit your own site in five minutes. Look at where staff spend time. Is it in team offices or beside clients? Change one routine so staff and clients co-plan an activity. That single move lives the Ethic of Engagement and makes 'care' a verb again.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Over recent decades, a couple of interesting trends have occurred in regard to human services practices in Australia. First, there has been a significant shift from practices that previously have intentionally responded to emerging and continuing human need within communities to practices that are now managed within a context of managerialism and influenced by market forces. Second, in such a changing context, increasingly, organisations have added the suffix 'care' to their organisational name. One is therefore left to consider why this latter change has occurred, and how is care being considered, particularly in organisations supporting people with intellectual disability (ID). METHOD: A conceptual-theoretical analysis is undertaken to explore the characteristics of human services that embrace managerialism. The moral constructions of personhood in regard to people with ID within this service context are investigated; and the implications of how care is practised are considered. RESULTS: An immoral-amoral binary of personhood within an underpinning neo-liberal context is identified and analysed. Further analysis reveals a more insidious independent-dependent binary for people with an ID linked to a dominating Ethic of Normalcy. This latter binary suggests that care seemingly becomes neither ethically relevant nor legitimate for people with ID in managerialist service contexts. CONCLUSIONS: Ethical transformation in regard to care is needed for contemporary human services practice for people with ID. The underpinning Ethic of Normalcy is challenged for an Ethic of Engagement; whereby a deep understanding of care as a moral concept needs to be at the core of practice, rather than merely attached in an organisational name.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2008 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2008.01078.x