Just occasionally in a conversation or an exchange you hear a word, and it sparks imagination or memory. I was fortunate and have been now for a few weeks to be listening to the Ctrl + Care podcast – which I can thoroughly recommend – and during one of them one of the two main contributors, Michelle Corrigan spoke about how social care is about discernment and how Ai for instance can never replace the activity and the art of discernment.

I have to confess it’s not a word I have used or reflected on for a long period and certainly not outside what might be spiritual or ecclesiastical corridors but Michelle in using it made me think just what is the role of discernment in social care and I reflected further on this at a conference on social care nursing just the other day. So here are some thoughts.

At first the word discernment sounds like an ancient word – something belonging more to the monastery than the modern care home, more to cloistered silence than the daily demands of home care visits. But I want to suggest that discernment is actually at the very heart of what it means to care and support another. And indeed, it is at the very heart of the distinctiveness of social care nursing.

The word comes from the Latin discernere – to separate, to distinguish, to sift. It is more than decision-making, more than problem-solving. It is attentiveness. It is about listening deeply, weighing not just facts but feelings, not just rules but realities.

It is not simply about seeing but about perceiving, about teasing out what is important from what is secondary, what is of value from what is distraction. In the Christian mystical tradition, discernment was spoken of as the ability to sense where love and life were moving, to detect the whisper of the Spirit amidst the noise of daily routine.

In the ancient traditions, discernment was a virtue. In the Celtic world of this land, it was often linked with the idea of anam cara – the soul friend – the one who helps another see the truth of their life. In the secular and philosophical traditions, discernment was seen as a discipline of wisdom: the slow and patient art of sifting, of waiting for clarity before action.

And I think social care nursing, in its essence, is this: not only the application of knowledge and skill, but the cultivation of soul-friendship, the gift of discernment.

In our care homes and in our homecare services, discernment is what distinguishes a task-driven approach from a relationship-centred practice.

It is the difference between hearing a request for a cup of tea – and recognising the deeper thirst for companionship that lies behind it.

It is the knowledge that when someone living with dementia refuses their medication, it may not be stubbornness – but fear, confusion, or a memory of trauma.

It is the sense that when a resident is restless in the night, the issue is not simply sleeplessness – but someone in need of comfort.

Discernment is what guides a carer to pause for a moment longer at a bedside, to ask the question that was nearly left unasked, to offer dignity in the small acts of attention.

Social care nursing has always been about this art: the art of listening beyond the words, the art of noticing the unspoken. And it is so because it is profoundly about nurturing relationship which is always more than simply performing a task.

John O’Donohue, in his luminous book Anam Cara, writes:

“The heart of discernment is to listen for the presence of the other. When you listen generously to people, they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time.”

That is, I suspect, the gift of social care nursing. It is not only about providing treatment or attending to tasks, but about creating the kind of space where someone can rediscover themselves, where their own truth can surface.

We are not technicians of the body alone. We are companions of the soul.

Discernment, in this way, is not a luxury. It is not an added extra. It is the very texture of good care and support. It is what makes social care nursing distinctive – grounded in skill, yes, but rooted in presence, in patience, and in the kind of listening that allows another to become more fully themselves.

The art of discernment in social care and social care nursing is one which I think needs to be rediscovered.

And perhaps today, more than ever, discernment is an act of resistance.

It resists the reduction of care to cost.

It resists the temptation to make relationship secondary to efficiency.

It resists the belief that rules and procedures can ever replace the lived moment of encounter.

Discernment insists that every decision is contextual, every encounter is unique, and every person is worthy of time and thought.

We have not lost this need today. Indeed, in a world of information overload, where care is often reduced to metrics and measures, discernment calls us back to something deeper. It asks us to resist rushing, to question the easy answer, to attend to the fragile humanity in front of us.

This is the distinctiveness of social care nursing. It is not simply about doing for another. It is about being with another. It is about the ancient art of wisdom rooted in the everyday acts of attention.

This is not to dismiss the necessity of policy, procedure, or system. But discernment reminds us that no rulebook can ever replace the lived moment of care, the eye contact, the listening ear, the intuitive sense of what is right in this unique situation.

So let me close with a poem, offered as a meditation, echoing the Celtic soul-tone that John O’Donohue so often gifted us:

 

In the stillness between sea and stone,

where the wind carries whispers of ancient hills,

discernment walks softly,

like a pilgrim listening for the soul of the land.

 

It is the knowing of tide from wave,

the hearing of truth in the hush of a pause,

the sight of light breaking through cloud,

revealing what lies hidden, tender, and true.

 

To discern is to sit by the hearth of another’s being,

to hear the music beneath their silence,

to cradle their story as one cradles flame,

protecting it from the gust of indifference.

 

And in this gentle seeing,

this soul-friendship born of presence,

we remember that care is not duty alone,

but the ancient art of belonging,

the blessing of one heart recognising another.

 

Donald Macaskill

In the aftermath of the Scottish Bereavement Charter Conference on the Future of Bereavement in Scotland – held a couple of days ago and which gathered a very thoughtful range of participants and a range of workshops, including the inspiring contributions of Debbie Kerslake of Birmingham – the growing intersection of AI and grieving deserves I think some wider consideration and reflection.

In my previous writing on “synthetic resurrection,” I invited readers to consider how emerging digital technologies reshape landscapes of memory and grief. At its heart, this practice asked: How might we hold the dead? And how might technology both support and challenge the dignity of that process?

Now, the News Agents piece “Would you use AI to talk to your dead relatives?” and an intriguing phone-in conversation on LBC just last week – brings that philosophical question into the everyday. It introduces Reflekta, an AI-driven service that enables families to create digital avatars of loved ones – fed by their memories, voices, and texts – and engage in ongoing conversation for a subscription fee. Some find comfort and continuity in this, especially those wishing to preserve stories (as Reflekta’s founder Greg Matusky does, using the voice of his WWII veteran father.)

Yet others, like reporter Lewis Goodall, warn of potential exploitation – cautioning that grief is not a product to be monetised, and that synthetic voices may hinder the natural process of letting go. I would tend to agree with Goodall because while Reflekta’s founder hopes to preserve family stories, there are obvious critics concerned about the ethical and emotional risks: worried that simulating a person risks substituting reality with “fiction” – a phantom that may hinder natural grieving and closure.

At this week’s bereavement conference, Debbie Kerslake joined me to explore AI and bereavement, placing technological innovation within a broader human rights and community context. She is also the Director of Brum YODO’s whose work- organising creative, communal events like A Matter of Life & Death Festival– underscores the power of shared ritual and story to process loss, foster connection, and honour forms of grief that resist digital reanimation.

Brum YODO’s ethos reminds us: talking about death, creating spaces for remembrance, imagining communal memorials- those are the foundational practices for healthy bereavement. They resist loneliness, stigma, and commodification of grief. Yet many of these accepted approaches including our own excellent Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief programme in Scotland, asks a basic yet fundamental question: Can Ai support healthy grieving?

The short answer is probably that Ai may provide narrative preservation, but cannot replace relational, embodied grieving.

The emerging scholarship on deathbots or AI-driven chatbots that emulate the presence of the deceased- so-called Interactive Personality Constructs of the Dead (IPCDs)- highlights a troubling concern: they may replicate some sense of presence but miss the profound intersubjectivity of real relationships, risking unresolved grief or emotional confusion.

For me at a very practical level at the heart of such griefbots lies a fundamental limitation: every response is based on static, past data- the recorded voice, texts, anecdotes of the person who has passed away. These AI reproductions cannot account for the reality of change – a loved one’s voice, attitudes, or advice would inevitably evolve if they were still alive- facing new world events, personal growth or even shifting relationships. They ignore the truth of personal development. Growth and wisdom occur continuously. We expect differently from those who remain with us. Ai chatbots cannot simulate these future selves of the deceased – they are frozen in time.

Thus, what such technology offers is not an evolving, relational presence, but a nostalgic snapshot- a memory preserved, not a relationship nurtured.

While Ai might help preserve memories- even offer solace in loneliness- its limitations lie in the lack of authenticity – a digital proxy cannot truly feel, respond, or evolve as the real person did. They risk dangerous dependency and overreliance on an AI persona may inhibit moving forward in a healthy way. And they also raise profound ethical concerns.

There are, also, other associated psychological risks with griefbots which the literature increasingly highlights – simulating a continuing bond may prolong the liminal state in which the deceased feels not fully gone. Grief is a process; transformation involves internalising the memory not preserving external echoes. Researchers also warn of technological “hauntings” – unsettling, unregulated presence of simulated voices that disrupt mourning and could induce emotional harm.

These AI systems often come with subscription models and algorithmic designs that reinforce emotional dependency, not healing. The bots optimise for engagement, risking manipulation of grief for profit. Monetising grief, misrepresenting the dead, and blurring lines between memory and fiction are very real risks. What happens, for instance, if your money runs out and you cannot continue the monthly subscription?  Whilst Reflekta have indicted there are use limitations and safeguards, they cannot guarantee against the risks of dependency. Such dependency may reduce the bereaved individuals’ emotional autonomy. If removing the bot means losing a vital connection, users become bound to the technology rather than free to grieve naturally.

More worryingly are the risks of anthropomorphism and what is called the ELIZA effect. This is where users inadvertently project human traits onto the chatbot, conflating simulation with sentience, which can deepen confusion and emotional reliance.  At its worst level this can be quite damaging. The well documented recent case of where a man in New York threatened to jump off a building after a recent divorce created intensive dependency upon a bot is a case in point.

So up till now I have been very negative and cautionary about the use of Ai in grief and bereavement support – but there are some, I would suggest, potential areas of use and benefit, if properly framed and boundaried.

AI might support archival storytelling – capturing memories, organising testimonials, preserving stories for future generations- but must not aim to replace the dynamic relationship or the evolving self. Such memory archives are not chat bots but rather act as the repositories of multimedia memories. There is also potential use in legacy tools and in encouraging reflection, encouraging families to remember together- without ongoing simulated interaction. But all of this has to be framed within ethical design and all practice, I would suggest has to ensure transparency, autonomy, consent, and ideally an “off button.”

AI in bereavement occupies a fragile tension between preservation and potential disruption. It can store voices and stories- but cannot embody relational depth. Communities like Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief and others remind us that grieving is not about simulation, but about shared humanity, ritual, and respect. Ai can support healthy grieving but only if held lightly, ethically, and sacrificially- subservient to the human, not the other way around. I am not at all convinced the bots we have seen and the products currently on the market are achieving that to date.

I leave you with the sage words of the great Mary Oliver, in ‘When Death Comes.’

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

 

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox

 

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

 

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

 

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

 

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

 

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

 

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

 

When it’s over, I want to say all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

 

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

 

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

 

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

When Death Comes | Library of Congress

 

Donald Macaskill

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

 

This past week has felt like a bit of a transition week. For those of us who are parents of school-age children most of us will have experienced either this week or the previous one our children returning to school after what has been a surprisingly good and even traditional ‘sunny’ summer.

That first day back at school is a real rite of passage for folks – looking at the new starts all bright-faced and uncertain, and older children re-kindling friendships and contact even if mobile phones have never been out of their hands for weeks! This return to school is more than calendar – it is ritual. It marks continuity and renewal. It also reminds us of the fragility of our systems – education, care, community – that hold us together.

But in the non-school world too we are also seeing change all around us, as conkers seem to be appearing even earlier and leaves are beginning to change colour. There is a growing chill in the morning air, not yet the bite of winter, but a reminder that change marches on. The days remain long, but the evening shadows start to stretch. And as seems to be becoming pattern migratory birds are returning even earlier than normal. The seasons are turning. I have always found these in‑between times to be moments of truth-telling, and opportunities for realism.

Watching children file into school reminds us of both hope and urgency. Schools are where potential is forged; where community is invested in, where futures begin. Yet alongside this forward movement, we must remember that for many families, stability is fragile. While classrooms brim with promise, care providers – homes, charities, volunteer networks – stand on strained foundations and if we allow those foundations to crumble the edifice of health and wellbeing in our society collapses.

This season is I have always felt a time for realistic optimism, a hope for the future grounded in a realistic assessment of the present and that seasonal aptitude has never been more needed than it is now for the world of social care. And realism begins with honesty.

Over 200 charities – many providing key social care services – have come together to issue a stark warning: the care sector is not sustainable as it stands. In an Open Letter to the First Minister published last week they plead for immediate action- sufficient funding and systemic reform- to avert a collapse that would harm our most vulnerable. Their plea echoes continual statements from myself and colleagues as for months now we have warned of real and immediate risk to social care provision, and most importantly the fact that people are dying as we speak and watch, waiting for life-affirming and renewing social care support. A couple of days ago in an interview in Herald Scotland I lamented the apparent ‘paralysis of response’ from the Scottish Government. No one seems to be listening. We are deafened by the inactivity of decision-makers and the malaise of political disinterest.

The charities’ joint letter is clear: nearly half of voluntary care organisations feel financially insecure; two-thirds rely on reserves to keep going, with 91% at risk within four years if trends persist; and a full 81% of voluntary bodies report escalating financial threats to essential services. These numbers are not abstract – they are communities, relationships, and dignity dripping away. The members of Scottish Care echo the same sense of alarm and concern in the surveys we have produced over the last few months. There is an existential threat to survival within the vast majority of social care providers in Scotland.

As we turn our gaze therefore toward autumn and winter, Scotland’s social care system stands at a threshold- facing profound economic pressures and legislative shifts.

From April 2025, UK-wide Employer National Insurance Contributions (eNICs) rose significantly adding around £2.8 billion in sector-wide costs, and imposing tight margins on social care providers, particularly smaller independent and voluntary organisations operating on low fees.

But this isn’t just about finance- it’s about dignity. Providers forced to scale back, cut staff hours, or close services leave vulnerable people isolated and families without support. Realism demands we name this hardship.

Added to this – just last month, the UK government closed the adult social care visa route unless roles meet degree-level criteria- meaning many migrant care workers will no longer be eligible. New recruits must now meet higher requirements, effectively ending overseas recruitment for care work from July 2025. I had a manager in tears this past week because she was having to tell a brilliant staff member that they could not continue her visa.

These changes threaten to exacerbate existing staffing gaps. Social care leaders warn of rising attrition, especially as better-paid NHS roles lure workers away from care homes and homecare services in pursuit of stability and advancement.

The realities facing our communities and our care services are stark. The rise in costs- whether from increased employer contributions, energy bills, or the price of food- tightens the margins of already fragile services. Workforce challenges remain severe, exacerbated by changes in immigration policy that close doors for many who might have chosen Scotland as a place to live and care. Families continue to struggle with the dual responsibilities of work and caring, unpaid carers shouldering burdens often unseen.

These are not passing inconveniences. They are deep and structural. To deny them would be to engage in wishful thinking. And care, if it is to mean anything, cannot be built on illusions.

Realism demands we hold these truths without flinching. Without pretending that goodwill alone can patch the gaps. Realism demands that we have long since passed the stage where Elastoplast measures will patch up the brokenness and ensure the patient survives. Realism demands that we require brave political leadership to make decisions and choices which will result in real change and not simply spew out yet more empty rhetoric. We need hope-full realism.

So where does that leave us? In tension. Realism tells us services face cost pressures, workforce crises, and uncertain policy. Hope reminds us of emerging gains: new rights, rising pay, reform legislation, and long‑term structures that aim to embed rights and consistency.

Hopeful realism is not denial, nor is it escapism. It is choosing to act.

Hopeful realism is the art of carrying truth in one hand and courage in the other. It refuses the luxury of despair just as it rejects the comfort of denial.

Hopeful realism tells us that the narrow road is often the truest one. It asks of us not perfection, but persistence; not certainty, but commitment.

Hopeful realism is not an abstract sentiment; it is a discipline. It is the daily choosing to believe that change is possible- and the practical work of bringing it into being.

Hopeful realism is not a compromise- it is a balance.

It says: Yes, we face severe staff shortages. But we also have the capacity to train, support and properly value a new generation of carers not least if we improve terms and conditions.

It says: Yes, increased costs will strain providers. But investment and fair funding can steady the ship and that the ship is essential for all of us.

It says: Yes, immigration changes will close pathways. But with imagination and policy will, we can open new ones.

Hopeful realism is a lens that sees the cracks in the walls yet still tends the flame within.

The coming months will not be easy. Winter rarely is. But this is not a time for resignation. It is a time for choosing. Choosing to act, to support, to stand alongside. Choosing to hold our political leaders accountable to their promises. Choosing to believe that care, in its truest form, remains one of the most powerful expressions of our humanity.

The return of schools teaches us that renewal is possible. And if we can invest collectively in education- an investment in our children- surely, we can do the same in social care- an investment in our neighbours, families, elders. The spirit of educators and parents who gather at school gates each morning can be replicated by communities, policymakers, and local leaders in meeting care needs with resolve.

Yesterday I was at the Scottish Parliament and was pleased to contribute to a debate entitled ‘ Do we value social care?’ which was part of the Parliament’s annual Festival of Politics. It was a great debate and discussion, and the overall consensus of panellists and audience was no – we value the people and the outcomes of changed lives and independence, but we do not value the workforce or organisations, or even the essence of social care. That has to change if hope is not to become an illusion.

We stand at a critical juncture: buffeted by policy shifts and fiscal strain, yet buoyed by reform, rights and renewed commitment. Hopeful realism calls us neither to despair nor to distraction—but to engaged courage, to act where we can, nurture where we must, and walk together into the change that must come.

The garden is full, the hedges high- and I sense both the fullness and fragility of this moment. The sun feels generous, yet we know autumn approaches. So let this in-between time be our reminder: hope requires practice and action, and practice is hope made real and realised.

Donald Macaskill

Photo by D R on Unsplash

Top of Form

A story is not a luxury.

It is not an embellishment added once other needs have been met. A story is central. It is how we come to know who we are. It is how we declare our presence to others. It is how we resist being erased in systems that too often reduce us to numbers, diagnoses, or costs.

Over the last few months, I’ve had several discussions around data and technology, and the tensions that sometimes exist with the use of personal data and the desire for personal privacy and individual control. As a result, I have found myself thinking again about the question of who owns our stories. In an age where our lives are increasingly digitised, where our memories, choices, and even our preferences are stored in invisible clouds, the question of personal data has become more than technical. It has become moral and ethical.

Following on from those meetings and conversations I have been thinking especially about the stories of older people in our social care and support system. When I speak with older people across Scotland, I hear a recurring theme: a sense of losing control. Not simply over health and care decisions, but over information. Who knows what about me? Who decides what is shared, and with whom? Who holds the keys to my life?

But it goes even deeper than that – it is not just the data that others have of us. It is the sense that people like professionals presume they know the whole story of who I am. So, all this has made me think of stories in the fullest human sense and not the ones written about older people, but the ones they hold within- their own stories. Because far too often, those personal narratives are sidelined. Not intentionally. But gradually. Imperceptibly. Lost in a sea of forms, eligibility criteria, assessments and appraisals. We gather data but lose the person.

In one care home I visited this spring, a woman in her 90s looked me straight in the eye and said,

“It feels like everyone else gets to write my story. But I rarely get the pen.”

What an image – and it’s one that has stayed with me.

Who holds the pen?

Who decides what is written, what is remembered, what is shared- and with whom?

There is great dignity in holding your own story. To know that your memories, choices, and identity are not just scattered across the systems of State, the operating platforms of a software or care provider but gathered, safeguarded, and stewarded by you.

This, at its heart, is what lies behind the growing movement around Personal Data Stores. Platforms like MyDex, Solid Pods, Hub-of-All-Things (HAT), and so many others are not simply technical solutions. They are moral statements: declarations that the right to hold and control your own data is an extension of the right to hold and express your identity.

What MyDex has pioneered is not merely a secure place for personal data. It is a model for digital dignity- a way for people, including those receiving care, to collect, manage and consent to how their data is used. And more importantly, to participate meaningfully in decisions about their own life.

In the world of social care, where so much of our energy goes into managing information about people, we must I feel increasingly ask a different question: How do we enable people to manage their own information?

Not just because it’s efficient or innovative, but because it is just.

In recent months, I have seen inspiring work in Scotland and across the UK where communities, innovators, and care organisations are exploring models that place the individual at the centre and in the lead. These systems do not treat data as a commodity, but as a sacred trust. They build on the belief that to be human is to have ownership of your past, your present, and your future choices.

And this is where care and technology meet. A human rights-based approach to care insists that we are more than patients or residents, more than service users. We are people whose identity is bound up in the stories we tell, and the stories told about us. The secure cloud, then, is not just about firewalls and encryption keys. It is about respect, dignity, and agency.

And that is a challenge, not least because the technology and social care systems and the way in which they have grown up together and apart does not make the ability to retain control and agency easy. The language of digital care systems has been dominated for too long by compliance – GDPR boxes ticked, privacy notices drafted, systems encrypted. But compliance is not the same as ethics, and consent is not the same as participation.

A human rights-based approach to social care- digital, AI or otherwise- must begin with the understanding that older people are not a single demographic category. They are individuals, each with a story, each with values, each deserving of voice.

Yet policy documents still refer to “the elderly” as a bloc. Health interventions are rolled out to “the over 75s.” Service planning talks of “high-risk groups.” And such treatment of individual older people as a homogeneous group was palpably evident during the recent submissions to the UK Covid Inquiry where it because abundantly clear just how little focus was given to the individual as opposed to the ‘group.’ All such approaches mean that the nuance of identity, of history, of individual choice and decision, and of personal journey is flattened out.

There is a slow erosion of personal autonomy when we reduce people to policy targets. Even when we are aware of these risks and we talk of co-design and co-production, too often decisions are made far from the rooms where older people live their lives. We must do better. Not simply because it is good practice, but because it is just.

Autonomy is not just about choice. It is about voice. It is about having your story held in respect, not just your needs measured in minutes and tasks. When we take a human rights-based approach to care, we are not only ensuring that people are safe or well-fed or medically supported – though all of these are vital. We are affirming something deeper: that people have the right to shape the telling of their lives, to be authors still, even when age or illness might seek to steal the script.

When we fail to do so it is no wonder that people feel unseen.

Ethical software development in care must shift away from systems designed for people and toward systems designed with people. This is what Personal Data Store developers and others are exploring: the digital infrastructure that places the person not the provider – at the centre. Systems and approaches that understand that my data is mine, not the State’s. the social care provider or the software business.

But we must go further.

We must ask, not least as new Ai-driven software systems are being developed, whose knowledge counts in system design? Are older people being consulted, or simply processed? Does our software reflect the principles of dignity, autonomy, and rights?

Too often, digital care solutions are designed around efficiency, interoperability, and cost-saving- rarely around emotion, memory, or personhood. We need ethical innovation that is rooted in relationship, not just functionality. And that may mean that a thorough rights-based analysis and evaluation of what we are already using in care delivery, and what we may want to use in the future requires, some designers to go back to the drawing board and some packages to be made obsolete because they do not sufficiently protect the rights and ownership of the citizen.

The challenge ahead of us in social care is not merely technical. It is ethical, cultural, and narrative.

We must reclaim the importance of the personal story and individual autonomy- not as a nice-to-have – but as the starting point for every decision, every plan, every policy. We must hand back the pen so that people can write their own futures, not have them dictated by systems.

This is not sentimentality. It is justice.

It is time to design care – from analogue to digital, from bedside to browser- based on the belief that every person holds a story that deserves to be told on their terms. That includes building digital platforms that do not mine, manipulate, or monetise human lives, but honour, protect, and empower them.

Because the future of care is not just data driven. It is human-shaped. And it begins by asking:

“What’s your story?”

Then giving people, the time, space, and tools to answer.

And for those who say the systems are too far down the road to change tack, that people are comfortable with their data being accessed by others – then we need to be very cognisant of the fact that there is a sharp generational change happening around public attitudes to data in society, as well as in social care. If we want to prepare for that changed ethical perspective, then we need to start now.

Specifically, a growing volume of research projects and reports are showing us that younger adults, being more digitally immersed, are seeking personalisation, and actively asserting their data rights and thus appear more likely to adopt tools like personal data packs. So, the social care recipient of the near future will increasingly want systems and models over which they have greater control, agency and the ability to write their own story and decide who sees it.

In the end technology will always be a tool. It is our values- the values of respect, autonomy, and dignity- that will continue to matter the most. The future of care is not just digital or data-driven. It is human. And it starts with giving back the pen to the real authors.

I leave you with a poem from the American 20^th century poet Maxwell Bodenheim which casts the inner world of the aging self as a place of memory and continuity, not decay. The “painted square” symbolises identity – the space where one’s thoughts, relationships, and stories live. It speaks deeply to the value of preserving and honouring personal narrative, especially as one grows older. It affirms that autonomy and identity endure, vividly and vulnerably, in the spaces where others might see only age.

Old Age

In me is a little painted square

Bordered by old shops.

I walk in these narrow places,

And hear the creaking of flesh that is still alive.

And outside, people pass,

Strong men with firm strides,

Women whose hair smells of scented leaves,

Children who forget to laugh too loudly.

 

Inside my square I am comfortable.

The old men sit smoking before the shops,

Their faces like neglected icons,

And they nod to me as I pass.

They are my thoughts, my reminiscences,

And each evening I return to them

With food from the present.

We talk of things long gone,

Of people who changed with the seasons,

Of women whose lips we kissed in forgotten cities.

 

Some evening I shall not return.

But the square will remain,

The old men still smoking,

Waiting for my cart of thoughts.

And someone else, in some other square,

Will pass and see them,

And wonder.

 

Old Age by Maxwell Bodenheim – Poems | Academy of American Poets

 

Donald Macaskill

 

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash