Ipso, international service of psychosocial peer-to-peer support

Publications Bank of innovations

Ipso, international service of psychosocial peer-to-peer support

International Psychosocial Organization (Ipso)

Peer-to-peer counselling session. Retrieved from Ipso’s website.

International mental health service and psychosocial support for peer-to-peer which offers offline and online in more than 20 languages (such as Arabic, Farsi, Punjabi, among others), and which today has more than 200,000 beneficiaries, mostly people who are immigrants, refugees or victims of armed conflicts.

Ipso counsellors are other persons of the same origin who are previously formed in Value Based Counselling, a type of short-term intervention that seeks to establish empathy with the person concerned and to support them without prejudice. In addition, the sociocultural plurality that allows this methodology makes it easier to adapt it to different contexts and to give service to a very high and diverse number of users.

It is a peer-to-peer service, which serves to empower both parties, and which at the same time seeks to prevent the hardships or traumatic situations that have been experienced from becoming chronic or leading to more serious problems, while helping in social integration.

Ipso services have spread widely in some countries such as Afghanistan, where it is present throughout the country through the public health service. The training of the counsellors is done mainly in Germany, in the headquarters of Ipso in Berlin, Erfurt and Hamburg, where they prepare people who are immigrated to do so. In other countries, such as Jordan, Iraq, Haiti and others, the Ipso service has also been extended through collaborating organisations.

Psychosocial support sessions can be performed face-to-face but also online through a secure video platform called ipso-care.com, and this has allowed the territorial scope of Ipso to become much broader, and at the same time indispensable during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is available in more than twenty languages, such as Arabic, Farsi, English, French, Russian, Turkish, Punjabi and others, because it is considered vitally important that people who receive this service can express themselves in their mother tongue.

International Psychosocial Organization (Ipso)

OKencasa, support for non-professional carers

Publications Bank of innovations

OKencasa, support for non-professional carers

OKencasa

Woman taking care of a dependent elderly man. Retrieved from OKencasa website.

Platform for the support aimed at non-professional carers caring a relative dependent at home. Through the Zaindoo app it offers permanent accompaniment from a care specialist, online training, tools for organizing care tasks, and discounts or advantages in services of physiotherapy, legal advice, home adaptation, etc. The aim is to improve the quality of life of the carers and to make their job easier, that is to say to look after the carers.

OKencasa periodically evaluates the physical, emotional and psychological well-being of the care-givers and, accordingly, offers them a personal plan of improvement and support that can be readjusted in time. The professionals in the service ensure that the caregiver is always accompanied and listened to with regard to the burden of their care tasks.

OKencasa also provides information to public social services so that they can provide better support for families and provide more efficient socio-sanitary care. The application is currently available in Euskera and Spanish.

OKencasa

Positive Sparks, platform to give voice to isolated or excluded young people

Publications Bank of innovations

Positive Sparks, platform to give voice to isolated or excluded young people

The Bytes Project

Youngsters participating in a face-to-face workshop from the project. Retrieved from Bytes’ website.

Youth participation platform which helps to give a voice to young people who are more isolated or excluded, to express their concerns, needs and opinion on the services offered by the community. The platform uses “Machine Learning” to analyse and interpret young people’s responses in a fast and automatic way.

In addition to empowering the most excluded young people and facilitating their participation, Positive Sparks allows social services and organisations working with young people with difficulties (mental health, drug abuse, school drop-out, etc.) to detect deficiencies in services, improve their interventions and identify new needs requiring new responses or services. The platform also offers the Public Administrations to use Positive Sparks for the development of youth-related public policies.

Within this initiative, more specific projects have emerged, such as Rural Sparks, which helps to give a voice to young people with difficulties in rural areas. On the other hand, Positive Sparks is not only a virtual platform, but also organizes workshops and presence activities to better meet young participants and to interact with them at first hand. Workshops are imparted by the Bytes organization in collaboration with other organizations, teaching centres, etc. It is currently a tool only available in English.

The Bytes Project

Kuvu, intergenerational rent to fight the loneliness and precariousness of elderly people and youngsters

Publications Bank of innovations

Kuvu, intergenerational rent to fight the loneliness and precariousness of elderly people and youngsters

Kuvu

Intergenerational cohabitation thanks to Kuvu

Platform that brings into contact people older than 55 who have a free room, with young people seeking rent at affordable prices. In this way, these elderly people earn an income and stop living alone; while young people who want to become independent and do not have the means to do so, or prefer to do so in a calm and familiar environment, can achieve it for an affordable price.

Unlike other European models, where accommodation is free for the young in exchange for care activities, the Kuvu model involves an economic transaction and places those involved in a relationship of equal conditions and responsibilities, since these are two self-employed people who simply seek company and share day-to-day. Kuvu seeks to generate cohabitation and accompanying relationships, as would two roommates. Both people may have an independent life, but share some moments of the day with the other person. There is no set number of hours for participants to spend together, because the relationship is hoped to occur naturally.

In order to ensure that coexistence will be viable, at the time of registering on the platform, a form must be filled with information about living habits, so that Kuvu can pair the people who are most compatible for living together. In addition, Kuvu makes a personal follow-up to the experiences it generates to try to make them as successful as possible.

Kuvu

Nextdoor, global platform against neighbourhood isolation and unwanted loneliness

Publications Bank of innovations

Nextdoor, global platform against neighbourhood isolation and unwanted loneliness

Nextdoor

Neighbours accompanying each other through Nextdoor

Virtual platform connecting neighbours and fighting against unwanted loneliness. Today it is used by neighbours of 265, 000 neighbourhoods in 11 countries, and during the Covid-19 pandemic it has been of great service to millions of people. It also has versions in Catalan and Spanish.

Nextdoor starts from the observation that today most citizens of large urban areas do not know their neighbours beyond casual encounters on the staircase or the street. Nextdoor is an online platform that wants to change this by creating more united and communitarian neighbourhoods using technology to eliminate possible barriers. It consists of a virtual forum where neighbours can post consultations, recommendations for local services, requests for help or interest information about the neighbourhood. All users must verify their belonging to a particular neighbourhood, so that communications are within the framework of this neighbourhood and are secure.

Nextdoor has been of great service during the Covid-19 pandemic thanks to initiatives such as #CuentaConmigo, which fights unwanted loneliness through video calls between neighbours, so that they can meet each other and share a time of their day-to-day lives. In addition, during the pandemic, they also launched a solidarity map so that neighbours could share their needs and help each other. It is a way to connect with other people and create a more united community; a unity that can then move to life outside the screen.

Nextdoor

Wheelmap.org, world map of accessibility for wheelchair users

Publications Bank of innovations

Wheelmap.org, world map of accessibility for wheelchair users

SOZIALHELDEN

Volunteer adding information into the map. By Andi Weiland I Wheelmap.org

Virtual free access map that indicates the accessibility of public sites around the world for persons with reduced mobility or wheelchair users, parents with a stroller, etc. It works similarly to Wikipedia: everyone can contribute with their knowledge of public places to update, expand, and improve the information contained in the map, in a very simple way. The map can be used from both your computer and mobile phone or tablet, using the Apps for iPhone and Android. It works all around the world and has already been translated into 32 languages, including Catalan and Spanish.

The accessibility rating system for each space is very easy to understand because it follows the idea of the traffic light: green if the site is fully accessible to wheelchairs; orange if it is partially accessible; and red if it is not. Sites that still have to be marked have a grey colour label. At the same time, this colour rating follows two important criteria: the first is accessibility in general, meaning whether or not there are stairs at the entry or inside the place to mark. And the second is the accessibility of toilets for wheelchair users. This will provide essential information to these people and shows the level of universal accessibility of the villages and towns of the whole planet.

Wheelmap.org

Older Women’s Cohousing, fighting against unwanted solitude

Publications Bank of innovations

Older Women’s Cohousing, fighting against unwanted solitude

Older Women’s Cohousing (OWCH) and Housing for Women

Members of the OWCH Project in one of the dwellings

Community housing project for women over the age of 50 deployed in North London. It consists of 26 individual dwellings that combine common areas so that community members have privacy at the same time as spaces where they meet and make community life. It is a group controlled by the same neighbours, where decisions are taken in a shared way and in which each woman collaborates in any way they can.

This housing model is a good form of empowerment for older women who live alone and want to share their lives with other women while also feeling independent. An important part of the project is that it is inclusive. To not discriminate by income level, part of the housing is social rental and therefore at affordable prices. The 26 members of the community, who are between 50 and 80 years old, are not only neighbours, but share their day-to-day activities such as gardening, painting, lunches with family members and friends, etc. In this way, they remedy loneliness and is expected that living accompanied can lead to a longer and better life.

Older Women’s Cohousing

A-Porta, a program to encourage neighbouring empowerment

Publications Bank of innovations

A-Porta, a program to encourage neighbouring empowerment

Confederació d’Associacions Veïnals de Catalunya (CONFAVC) and Cooperative “ser Barri”

“Picaportes” advising a neighbour. Retrieved from a-porta.cat

Social Project of neighbouring empowerment trough charismatic neighbours living in neighbourhoods where there are significant social needs. These neighbours are named “Picaportes” (in Catalan: those who knock on doors) and are hired, trained, and coordinated to make visits to all the people living in the neighbourhood. In these visits they give support, advice, information and resources on how to improve quality of life. They deal with issues such as access to social rights, job search, energy vulnerability, accompaniment to older people…

The project seeks to take over the neighbours, to break the mistrust that may exist, and to report on the resources, both public and self-managed, that are located in the neighbourhoods so that they can gradually develop a solid and supportive community. This social cohesion is achieved through the role of the “Picaportes”, who also live in the neighbourhood and can better empathise with the situation of neighbours than an outsider.

A-Porta

Ankommen, an app that guides refugees during their first weeks in Germany

Publications Bank of innovations

Ankommen, an app that guides refugees during their first weeks in Germany

Federal Migration and Refugee Office and Federal Employment Agency, Germany Goethe Institut and ARD-Alpha Bildungskhannel

Ankommen app

Ankommen (arriving) is an application for mobile phones that guides the refugees during their first weeks of arrival in Germany, offering them basic information about the country of reception, on the legislation of refuge and asylum, on programs of professional training and employability, etc.

It also offers online German classes. The APP has versions in Arabic, Farsi, German, English and French. It’s free, does not contain advertising, works for Android and iOS platforms, and can also be used offline.

The development of the application has been possible thanks to a close collaboration between the Federal Bureau of Migration and Refugees, the Goethe Institute, the Federal Employment Agency, and ARD-Bayerischer Rundfunk, a public broadcaster of radio and television.

Ankommen

Nelson Mandela, a program for reintegration to life in freedom

Publications Bank of innovations

Nelson Mandela, a program for reintegration to life in freedom

Xunta de Galicia

by whereslugo on Unsplash

Program for the social reintegration of ex-prisoners, which offers personalized itineraries tailored to the needs of each participant, with both technical and personal preparation, as well as training and support activities for work integration. The goal is for those who have been released from prison to expand their competencies and improve their personal and professional skills to help them on their path to full inclusion.

The program is part of the Social Inclusion Strategy of Galicia 2014-2020, designed and funded by the Xunta de Galicia and the European Social Fund. It has been developed so far in a single prison, Teixeiro, and has benefited more than 1,500 inmates.


Xunta de Galicia