Between Kith and Kin and formal services

This paper:
- looks at acts and relationships of everyday help between the worlds of ‘kith and kin’ and formal service provision;
- focuses on the role of those groups and organisations which lack any formal remit for support but make an important contribution to an ‘infrastructure of kindness’;
- explores how such settings can facilitate – and sometimes constrain – small acts of kindness and variation in such dynamics across social and geographic contexts.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) commissioned this paper as part of its programme on ageing society, which works to understand how demographic changes will affect the way we live and work together.