Being Carers-Ser Cuidador

Spain

01-11-2006

The service objective is to support, assist, advice and inform both informal and formal carers as well as migrants care workers. It also aims at improving carers and cared for ones’ quality of life and, indirectly, the quality of provided care as well.

 

The service main motivation is to offer an innovative service, based on an online platform, integrated in the public welfare system, supporting formal and informal carers with particular attention to dependency, fostering the awareness on this issue throughout Spain.

 Care Recipients
 Informal carers
 Paid assistants
 Formal carers

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 Independent Living
 Information and learning for carers
 Personal Support and Social Integration for carer
 Care coordination

The provided ICT services enhance the quality of provided care and informal carers’ and migrant care workers’ quality of life by the means of participation and training.

In details there are five service lines:

1) Information: to informal and formal carers to acquire knowledge, abilities, care standards to improve the dependent person’s health and autonomy.

2) Help: concrete definitions and solutions for different cases, resources and services, aspects on dependency, guidelines to prevent dependence and maximum delay of aging deterioration.

3) Prevention: advices on healthy ageing, patterns of behaviour for slowing the degenerative process from certain chronic diseases and advice for preventing home accidents.

4) Blogs and forum: to share experiences, suggestions, information, techniques, among formal and informal carers.

5) Contacts and links: to access others websites, addresses, telephone numbers of public and private institutions assisting all carers in terms of available resources and services to dependants and legislation on this issue.

The portal offers many services, tools, documents, research materials (i.e.: "Dependency and family: socio-economic perspective") and training contents. Among them: a "basic self-care Guide for carers", a "Guide to disability aids", the "Ser Cuidador TV ", with videos and demonstrations on caregiving: technical assistance, maintenance, supporting way to caregivers as exercises to relax and for well-being. All materials and contents can be consulted and downloaded from the portal.

Technological supports used by carers and/or care recipients are personal computer with internet connection and telephone (to access the call centre).

Public only

Public service funding: Government, Regional, Local Authorities, non-profit public entities

Government: Spanish Ministry for labour and immigration.

 

Other: please specify

Not applicable

Not applicable

Since the initiative was promoted and supported by various governmental institutions and integrated within the public welfare system to spread the awareness on dependency and care and to support caregiving, future funding are available to ensure its sustainability and operation.

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 Authorities
 Private Care Sector
 Health and Social Care Systems
 Third Sector
 Private Companies

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Third Sector is largely represented, as the service provider is the Spanish Red Cross.

 Informal Carers
 Health Professionals
 Social Care Professionals
 Privately-Hired Care Assistants (inc. Migrant Care Workers)
 Volunteers

All materials and contents described in the service section, are realized by professionals with a multidisciplinary background, involved in the five service lines (Information, Help, Prevention Blogs and forum, Contacts and Links) in providing information, support and help. Moreover they are in charge of the blog, forum and of the contacts and links section. Lastly they are responsible for training.

Volunteers from the Red Cross and the Kovacs Foundation support carers by providing practical help and participating in the blog and in the forum where they share their own experiences and give advice for novel carers.

1,001 - 5,000

It is very difficult to know the exact number of users, as carers access different services and the flow of phone calls and the amount of people attending the blog are swinging. In 2008 (last data available) there were 585 people registered in total in the portal, with a total of 269.909 visits. One of the most popular or frequent activity carried-out by users, is the use of the blog. The total number of phone calls received from the Call Center were 6.858 (during the period 25.03.2008 and 29.05.2009), made by 1.212 different users, especially for information, orientation and emotional support in relation to caring activities. These data confirm the high number of users of the service and its relevance in terms of interest for its contents and services (Schmidt et al., 2011).

On the website there is a section on news (only in Spanish). The portal provides also recommendations and practical exercises to keep formal and informal carers’ in good health as its promotion strategy intends also to support healthy aging and dependency prevention through promoting healthy habits. The main information and communication channels used for this kind of promotion are the blog and forums: formal and informal carers interact also with care professionals. Another channel is a contact on line form.

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Strengths:

1. Among the offered services, there is a call centre, a telephone line with a national coverage to assist carers. The call centre is part of the program "A caregivers, Two Lives," including initiatives addressed to carers, a service already among the analysed case studies. This phone line informs and intends to resolve questions carers may put, provides emotional support and strategies for coping with the caring difficulties.

2. The service connects private and public services for carers and cared for persons.

3. It is well integrated in the national network of social and health services.

Weaknesses:

1. The website www.sercuidador.org is only in Spanish so it is not accessible and user friendly to migrant with difficulties with the language.

2. Recent data on number of users are missing, due to the impossibility of direct contacts with service representatives.

3. There is no impact assessment of the initiative.

Opportunities:

1. An opportunity now is a further progress to integrate better and upgrade the supply of services with a greater connectivity with other services and policy instruments to help the carers

The initiative already has a good national coverage and it could be transferred to other contexts but it could be possible only through the collaboration of different partners from Third Sector and national/local administrations that can support and fund it.

References:

Schmidt A., Chiatti C., Fry G., Hanson E., Magnusson L., Socci M., Stückler A., Széman Z., Barbabella F., Hoffmann F.& Lamura G. (2011), Analysis and mapping of 52 ICT-based initiatives for caregivers, ,
http://is.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pages/EAP/eInclusion/documents/CARICTD2.3Mappingof52initiatives.pdf

Resources:

http://www.sercuidador.org/

Publications:

Different publicationsreporting the best texts and articles from the initiative’s blog are available at http://www.sercuidador.org/Guia-Cuidados-SC.html

Spanish Red Cross

Telephone: 0034 902 22 22 92

For information: informa@cruzroja.es