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The article starts with a brief sketch of the current state of care ethics in the Dutch-speaking Low Countries. It examines more closely the authors’ approach to empirical research and its underlying argument, and sketches a theoretical development in care ethics that they deem promising. An oscillating movement is needed between empirical work and theory development, committing both to each other. The article concludes with some remarks on the need in care ethics for multisided international debates, the empirical grounding of normative claims and the radicalisation of care ethics, loyal to its critical insights and dedicated to its transformational aim.

The Covid-19 pandemic is a tragedy for those who have been hard hit worldwide. At the same time, it is also a test of concepts and practices of what good care is and requires, and how quality of care can be accounted for. In this paper, we present our Care-Ethical Model of Quality Enquiry (CEMQUE) and apply it to the case of residential care for older people in the Netherlands during the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead of thinking about care in healthcare and social welfare as a set of separate care acts, we think about care as a complex practice of relational caring, crossed by other practices. Instead of thinking about professional caregivers as functionaries obeying external rules, we think about them as practically wise professionals. Instead of thinking about developing external quality criteria and systems, we think about cultivating (self-)reflective quality awareness. Instead of abstracting from societal forces that make care possible but also limit it, we acknowledge them and find ways to deal with them. Based on these critical insights, the CEMQUE model can be helpful to describe, interrogate, evaluate, and improve existing care practices. It has four entries: (i) the care receiver considered from their humanness, (ii) the caregiver considered from their solicitude, (iii) the care facility considered from its habitability and (iv) the societal, institutional and scholarly context considered from the perspective of the good life, justice and decency. The crux is enabling all these different entries with all their different aspects to be taken into account. In Corona times this turns out to be more crucial than ever.

Drs. Michael Kolen werkt als geestelijk verzorger/ adviseur zorgethiek bij Stichting Prisma, een organisatie die ondersteuning biedt aan mensen met een verstandelijke beperking. Hij is als PhD-student The ethical care perspective of our research reveals the moral relevance of everyday interactions M I C H A E L K O L E N , F R A N S V O S M A N , G U U S T I M M E R M A N O N D E R D E R A D A R . A L L E D A A G S E O M G A N G A L S K E N B R O N V O O R Z O R G O R G A N I S AT I E S I N T R A N S I T I ES

Learning to work as a relational caring professional in healthcare and social welfare, is foremost a process of transformative learning, of Building, of professional subjectification. In this article we contribute to the design of such a process of formation by presenting a structured map of five domains of formational goals. It is mainly informed by many years of care-ethical research and training of professionals in healthcare and social work. The five formational domains are: Relational Caring Approach, Perception, Knowledge, Interpretation, and Practical Wisdom. The formation process, described as the recurring detour of a continuing practice, requires ‘exposure’, in-depth learning and learning communities. Relational caring—care consequently resulting from and structured by relational thinking, exploring, and steering—requires ‘inquiry’ as a continuous learning process in practice. The process is ultimately aimed at fostering mature, competent, and practically wise professional caregivers who are able to relationally connect with and attune to care receivers, and adequately navigate existential, moral, and political-institutional tensions in relational caring in complex organizations in Late-Modern society.