The following is based on a brief speech given at the end of the Scottish Care social care nursing conference on 24th August entitled ‘The Nursing of Belonging’ and on general reflections on that day.
Few words have gained as much prominence in recent years as belonging. It appears in discussions about communities, workplaces, politics and public policy. We speak of the need to create belonging, to strengthen belonging and to address the consequences that arise when people no longer feel that they belong anywhere at all.
Behind this renewed interest lies an uncomfortable reality. Many people experience modern life as increasingly fragmented and fractured. Relationships can feel more transient, communities less stable, and the institutions that once provided identity and connection often seem more distant than they once were. In many ways, belonging has become a word that captures something deeply human: our desire to know that we matter, that we are recognised, and that our lives are woven into the lives of others.
Yet belonging is neither fashionable nor new. Long before it became a topic of research reports, conferences and strategies, belonging was being nurtured and sustained in countless acts of care practice. And perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in social care nursing.
Nursing has always been concerned with the wellbeing of the whole person. Whilst it is rightly associated with clinical expertise, professional judgement and skilled intervention, it has also carried an attentiveness to something that can never be fully measured or recorded. Nursing understands that human beings need more than treatment and support. We need connection, recognition and continuity. We need to know that we still have a place in the world, and that our identity remains intact even when illness, frailty, disability or dementia threaten to unsettle it.
Perhaps the deepest human need is not simply to be cared for but to know that we belong.
Belonging is fundamentally about recognition. It is about being encountered as a person rather than being defined by a diagnosis, a limitation or a need. It is the reassurance that even when circumstances alter, the essence of who we are remains worthy of attention, and respect.
We discover who we are through the places we inhabit, the relationships we nurture, the stories we share and the communities that remember us. Our sense of self is shaped as much by connection as by circumstance. This understanding lies at the heart of social care nursing.
Unlike many areas of healthcare, social care nursing is frequently practised in places where people live rather than in the places they pass through. Care homes, supported housing and community settings are not simply locations in which care is delivered. They are places where life continues. They are places where birthdays are celebrated, friendships formed, grief shared, routines established and memories created. They are places where people continue to belong.
In these settings, nursing extends far beyond clinical expertise, important though that remains. Social care nurses help create the conditions in which people continue to feel known, valued and at home in the world. They understand that wellbeing is often sustained through the ordinary details of life: familiar faces, treasured possessions, favourite songs, longstanding relationships and daily routines. They recognise that these are not incidental aspects of care. They are often the very foundations of identity.
This is especially evident in supporting people living with dementia. Much of social care nursing involves protecting and strengthening the connections that remain rather than dwelling solely on what has been lost. A familiar photograph, a remembered piece of music, participation in community life, the continuation of faith, culture or ritual, all become ways of affirming that identity is preserved and that belonging endures.
The nursing of belonging is therefore neither sentimental nor secondary. It is skilled, intentional and profoundly important. It involves recognising uniqueness, safeguarding continuity and creating environments in which people remain connected to themselves and to others. It acknowledges that dignity does not need to be earned and that belonging should never be conditional.
In a society increasingly marked by loneliness and isolation, social care nursing offers a vital reminder. Human flourishing is not sustained by treatment alone. We become ourselves through relationships. We discover meaning through participation in community. We find resilience when we know that we are known.
It is this understanding that came to mind as I returned recently to Seamus Heaney’s beautiful poem The Blackbird of Glanmore. The poem is rooted in place, but it is also rooted in memory, relationship, grief and homecoming. Throughout its verses there is a profound sense of what it means to be connected to people and place, and of how belonging gives us the confidence to live, to remember and to continue.
The Blackbird of Glanmore
On the grass when I arrive,
Filling the stillness with life,
But ready to scare off
At the very first wrong move.
In the ivy when I leave.
It’s you, blackbird, I love.
I park, pause, take heed.
Breathe. Just breathe and sit
And lines I once translated
Come back: “I want away
To the house of death, to my father
Under the low clay roof.”
And I think of one gone to him,
A little stillness dancer –
Haunter-son, lost brother –
Cavorting through the yard,
So glad to see me home,
My homesick first term over.
And think of a neighbour’s words
Long after the accident:
“Yon bird on the shed roof,
Up on the ridge for weeks –
I said nothing at the time
But I never liked yon bird.”
The automatic lock
Clunks shut, the blackbird’s panic
Is shortlived, for a second
I’ve a bird’s eye view of myself,
A shadow on raked gravel
In front of my house of life.
Hedge-hop, I am absolute
For you, your ready talkback,
Your each stand-offish comeback,
Your picky, nervy goldbeak –
On the grass when I arrive,
In the ivy when I leave.
As I read the poem, I am reminded that belonging is never about keeping people fixed in place. Rather, it is about providing secure ground from which life can continue to unfold. Social care nursing does precisely this. Whether helping someone adjust to life in a care home, supporting a person living with dementia to maintain a sense of self, or enabling an individual to remain connected to family, faith, culture and community, social care nurses help create that secure ground upon which identity continues to grow.
The blackbird in Heaney’s poem moves between grass and ivy, arrival and departure, presence and distance. Yet throughout there is a sense of rootedness. The bird can move because it belongs. It can venture outward because it knows where home is.
Belonging is not a luxury. It is one of our deepest human needs.
And every day, often quietly and without recognition, social care nurses help make belonging possible. Through their skill, presence, attentiveness and compassion, they create spaces where people continue to know themselves, continue to recognise their place amongst others, and continue to believe that their story matters.
For belonging often begins when another person sees us clearly and says, through word or action, that despite everything which may have changed, we are still known, still valued and still at home in the world.
Donald Macaskill
The Blackbird of Glanmore’ by Seamus Heaney + Analysis | THE GCSE & GCE ENGLISH PORTAL
Photo by derek braithwaite on Unsplash
