Key Definitions

CCCE - Giving Care - An approach to a better caregiving landscape in Canada (2022)

Key Definitions:

1. Caregiving - providing help or care to another person (does not specify care as service and care as physical infrastructure);
2. Caregiver - an unpaid family member, friend or other support for someone who needs care (the term 'care' is not specified to differentiate or include the provision of care infrastructure ie. bed, furnishings, room, facility, grounds, transportation, etc.);
3. Care provider - trained and paid to provide care - does not specify paid care infrastructure ie. housekeeping, facilities, food / beverage, etc.
4. Care recipient - person receiving care
5. Double duty caregiver - unpaid and paid care service provider

What I notice about these definitions is the lack of inclusion of the physical, material and technological dimensions of care - the conditions that provide infrastructure for care work to be executed.

When we are talking about Giving Care, we need to ensure we are talking about all the dimensions that contribute to providing care - both service and material infrastructure.

The Caregiver, unpaid, providing care in their personal care setting is giving both their service and their material infrastructure, as well as the secondary service of maintaining and servicing that material infrastructure. The Care provider, paid, is providing care within a professional setting (even if that setting is being provided by the family caregiver in their private home). 

The work of the Caregiver cannot be delivered without the additional expenditure of providing the care infrastructure that is assumed to be provided in the professional setting.