For months, my friends have reacted with confused horror that they've barely attempted to disguise when I told them that I was spending August in Belgium and not going to the beach like any reasonable person living in Portugal.
I tried to explain that it's a work trip, which is true in a way that the IRS might not agree with, because it's not as if I've lined up a bunch of meetings with subject matter experts. Subject matter experts are at the beach in August.
Which is precisely why I'm visiting Belgium in August, because that's when a psychiatrist who helps run the only foster care program for adults with mental illnesses that I know of1 is happy to lend me her home for a week. It's also when I can try out working from home at someone's apartment in Belgium's largest co-housing community. It's easy to get myself an invitation to house sit anywhere in Europe during August and I wanted to come to a place that has the sort of programs we Americans fantasize about.
It's not that I'm against formal meetings and interviews. I've even scheduled a few, since not quite everyone is on vacation. It's simply that those provide me the information I'm looking for. What I’m looking for is always far less relevant than the things I don't know to look for.2
The most interesting things, the most insightful things, come out on their own. They happen in the interstitial moments, often as someone is walking me to the door. They happen when we have strayed from the talking points or, even better, when there were never talking points to begin with.
Caregivers are understandably reluctant to set up an appointment to talk about their home life and their interaction with government services. The ones who do either have a litany of complaints they hope I can resolve (alas, I can’t) or show up prepared to tell me what they think I want to hear. Most of the things that have shaken up my understanding of care work have come not from interviews, but from almost random encounters.
The thing about care work is that we are among very many subject matter experts. When I meet someone through friends of friends of friends and they invite me over for coffee just to be friendly to an out of town visitor, they share their caregiving story without hesitation as soon as I tell them about my interest in care work. They don’t have an agenda beyond helping me understand how things work and enjoying a moment of connection.
I’ve long been frustrated that people don’t take me seriously at work. Now, my unassuming appearance is an asset. It's easy for me to find out what services someone uses, how helpful they find them, what the process of navigating the system is like, and what issues they're still struggling with are. This might be dangerous if I were a spy or an investigative reporter. Luckily, I'm trying to understand how we can create a world that supports caregivers.
Which is how I'm in the village of Geel, wishing I was more like my outgoing step mom and less like someone who wants to hide behind a bush whenever I accidentally make eye contact with a stranger. Conveniently, I need help constantly and the world is full of helpful people, forcing me to be social. I'm not sure what comically embarrassing situation I'm about to get myself into — it's probably going to involve me getting on a bike for the first time in a while in a place where the rules of the road are very different from the boardwalks of New Jersey — but it'll probably end with me learning someone's caregiving story, told in perfect English, while they help me with something any Belgian could do independently.
In the US and Canada there is the regulatory framework to place people who cannot live independently in a variety of living situations. Yet, by default we place children in foster care and we institutionalize adults. The phrase ‘adult foster care’ baffles people and when I explain it they seem skeeved out. Yet they all know an adult who has been quietly passed from household to household over the years in order to avoid institutionalization, without any official oversight or help. How is it that Geel has had adult foster care for so long? What’s it like to live there? Is their program really winding down because it’s no longer necessary?
In the US and Canada it seems like everyone I meet has a fantasy of living with their friends and extended family. Maybe they want to all live in the same apartment building, or create a tiny house community, or all buy homes in the same neighborhood. The formal version of this vision is co-housing and it's something that's very rare in North America and something banal in Belgium. Are the regulatory differences why it’s so rare in North America? Why was my Brooklyn co-op and my Toronto co-ownership building nothing like the co-housing buildings in Ghent? Does it come anywhere close to living up to the hype in terms of having care work performed communally?
I can read books and case studies about adult foster care and co-housing. I can set up calls with the people who wrote those books and case studies or were interviewed in them. It's still different to show up and hang around, to see how things actually feel. To try to wrap my head around why something is effectively impossible in North America and understand why it's actually possible somewhere else. To try to see how much of our fantasy version of these programs is purely fantasy. There are proper sociological methods to accomplish these ends. So far being a house guest who looks perpetually confused is working pretty well for me.
Why aren't word problems in math just figuring out how much medical care is going to cost? also, same link:
“The reason I liked this study was because it really wasn’t looking at anything other than improving the patient experience. How many studies have the sole purpose of doing that? There’s always a lot of talk around how patients are noncompliant with the treatment plans they’re given. But how many studies look at trying to simplify complex regimens and REMOVE things patients [don't] need to do? There’s just really no incentive to.”
Vancouver Island has an adult foster care program for people with developmental disabilities, Glenora Farm. Visiting Glenora Farm is what sparked my interest in adult foster care.
See also, why I decided against turning this into a PhD project after flirting with the idea for a while.