Sambhav, tele-rehabilitation service for people with disabilities in rural areas

admin on 11 March 2022

Image from Jan Vikas Samiti web

Tele-rehabilitation service for people with physical disabilities living in rural areas through an App for mobile phones and a web portal. It offers remote consultation, prevention, diagnosis and therapeutic rehabilitation services. The programme, which started with physical rehabilitation, is expanding to other disciplines such as physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and assistive technologies.

The tele-rehabilitation services have a dual focus. On the one hand, to provide quality training to professionals in rural areas to improve their rehabilitation skills through regular courses and workshops. On the other hand, to guide and advise in real time the professionals working in the field through a central team of experts.

Over the years, Sambhav has used the data obtained to standardize various rehabilitation services. The aim is that all people with physical disabilities can receive fast and quality care at their place of residence by qualified professionals.

Characteristics of innovation

Bank of innovations, Disability, Independent living, Lab, Link with the community, New service, Personalization of the service, Proximity care

Location

India

Partners/Funders

Liliane Foundation, District Disability Rehabilitation Centres, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India

Genesis

The JVS-Jan Vikas Samiti organisation launched the Sambhav tele-rehabilitation project in 2018 to reach out to people with disabilities in rural India. The aim of the project is to improve rehabilitation schemes and provide appropriate therapy to people with disabilities, wherever they live, as well as to train professionals in the territory in diagnosis and quality rehabilitation. Tele-rehabilitation offers consultation, prevention, diagnosis and therapeutic rehabilitation services through two-way interactive telecommunication technology.

Level of implementation

In order to provide quality rehabilitation services to all people with disabilities, JVS designed this project from the outset to be easily scalable. The service is now present in 10 states in India, with 18 partner organisations in the northern and north-eastern regions of India.

JVS plans to extend the service to other territories with rural areas that have to work in similar conditions and with limited resources, such as countries in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and some in South America.

Further information

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P.I.P.P.I., intensive care programme for vulnerable families with young children

admin on 4 March 2022

Girls playing.

Intensive and multidisciplinary intervention programme in vulnerable families to reduce the risk of children being removed from their nuclear family, articulating a set of combined actions in relation to children’s needs: intensive home care, group activities with other parents, accompaniment by volunteer families, and joint work with teachers and social workers from schools and social services.

In line with the aim of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to develop measures to ensure the best interests of the child, the Italian Ministry of Social Welfare, in partnership with the University of Padua, designed and implemented from 2011 this intensive care programme for vulnerable families called the Intervention Programme for the Prevention of Institutionalization. Its abbreviation, P.I.P.P.P.I. is at the same time inspired by the fictional character Pippi Långstrump, a creative and surprisingly resilient girl known all over the world.

As its name suggests, P.I.P.P.P.I. aims to prevent out-of-home care and respond to problems related to child neglect, taking into account the right of all children to quality care. When parental neglect is involved, and there is a subsequent removal of the child, the removal itself expropriates the competence of the parents. This practice does not seem to be the most desirable intervention, so P.I.P.P.Y. experiences a social response that attempts to put the developmental needs of children first.

P.I.P.P.P.Y. represents a co-ordinated and co-operative work between different institutions, professions and disciplines of social services, psychology and pedagogy to act together in order to achieve a reduction in the number of children removed from their families. At the same time, P.I.P.P.P.I. has developed its own tool for the assessment and evaluation of cases based on models from Scotland and Quebec.

P.I.P.P.P.Y. is now widespread throughout Italy, and several academic studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of this intervention model. The evaluation report of the seventh edition of the programme 2018-2020 provides evidence of the bonus results achieved.