A social and health coordination service project aiming to improve the quality of life of the convivial care unit formed by a dependent person and a caregiver.
The context of demographic change in the Basque Country, the increase in situations of dependency associated with old age and disability, and the incorporation of women into the productive sector are some of the elements that have contributed to the so-called care crisis.
In this context ORUE AUZOLANA FUNDAZIOA designs a project aimed at providing weekly hours of respite to the main caregiver by providing information and advice to promote self-management and also ensuring a program of functional maintenance and promotion of personal autonomy for their family member during the hours of duration of the respite time.
To achieve the objectives and their implementation, firstly, we manage alliances with the Town Halls and the Social Services to know and detect those caregivers with greater overload and with greater risk of giving up in the provision of care, which in turn increases the risk of institutionalization of the dependent person.
Once the beneficiaries have been identified, an evaluation of the cohabitation unit is carried out, after which two intervention plans are designed to be applied simultaneously, one aimed at the dependent person and the other at reducing the overload and empowering the carer.
Resources needed
120,000 budget, and three full-time staff.
Evidence of success
So far, the record of beneficiaries is 124 convivial units. The most valuable benefits obtained:
• Reduction of overload indicators in caregivers
• Use of respite time in leisure activities, training, medical evaluations and rest that was not done prior to the program.
• Satisfaction in the care provided to the dependent person
• Reported high satisfaction with the program
• Coordinated solutions and open communication between social services and project managers.
Potential for learning or transfer
Given the importance of accompanying the family caregiver in his task, we have designed a project that coordinates with social services the detection of convivial units at risk due to overload and exhaustion to provide hours of respite that not only aim to provide "free time" to the caregiver but also to design with him a plan to improve his self- efficacy while we intervene in the promotion of personal autonomy or functional maintenance of the
dependent person.
In order to increase the knowledge of this sector and guarantee the continuous improvement of our actions, we are currently carrying out two processes
• Establishment of alliances with the University to carry out research related to the self- control and bounded agency style of family or primary carers in Bizkaia.
• Creation and monitoring of the living lab with the programme's carers to design new care tools based on their needs.
Tags: Community, Empowerment, Health, Inclusion, Services, Social
