SOCIAL PRACTICES OF VOLUNTEERING AMONG OLDER PEOPLE

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of volunteer activities of elderly people, the features and motives of their participation. Volunteering in old age is due to the potential of a growing socially active lifestyle of elderly people who are ready to engage in social practices for the benefit of society. The main motives of volunteer activity among elderly people and factors influencing the popularization of volunteer work are identified. The significance of changing value orientations in the process of volunteer work is revealed, and the reverse impact of volunteer activity on the process of activating social practices of elderly people is also characterized.The analysis of volunteer practices presented in the text is based on the author's experience of working with clients of the territorial social service center and the council of labor veterans of the Podilskyi district of Poltava.Participants of volunteer groups of elderly people begin to make friends, visit each other and organize joint holidays; actively help various social groups, including IDPs, limited mobility elderly people; create new communities and interact with local authorities to promote their ideas. Such activity helps to overcome social exclusion in such domains as social relations, local communities and place of residence, civic participation, socio-cultural aspects. Volunteering and civic activity increase the social inclusion not only of elderly volunteers, but also of those whom they help.The difficulties in developing volunteering and civic activity include: lack of stable patterns of socially active life in old age; unwillingness to help; fear; lack of systematic training and support for volunteers; negative experience of participation and subsequent disappointment.At the same time, in addition to the economic and social effect for society, volunteering has a number of positive effects on specific people, in particular on elderly people (through meeting social needs, improving mental health, etc.). The article shows the possibilities of involving elderly people in social life using real examples.It was found that the participation of elderly volunteers in Ukraine is somewhat complicated by existing social stereotypes and the direction of public policy, but at the same time there are promising cases of involving elderly people in volunteer activities.