Virtual visits to social services to bring them closer to citizenship

Publications Bank of innovations

Virtual visits to social services to bring them closer to citizenship

Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council

Example of a virtual visit. Retrieved from Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council website.

Service that allows virtual visits to the different social services offered by the City Council of Vitoria-Gasteiz. It is a combination of Google Street View and YouTube 360 technologies to be able to offer an immersive and real experience without moving from home. This technology enables the realization of interactive visits, while at the same time providing summary videos of the sites through the local social services website.

Visits are tours that serve to make the services and their facilities known, using them agilely and easily, either through the interaction with the computer’s mouse, touch-like to mobile devices, or even with virtual reality glasses. Spaces can be visited virtually at any time, and thanks to the 360 degrees’ video format the feel is similar to being present in the visited site.

This information instrument seeks, not only to connect social services with citizenship, but also to other institutions, third sector entities, etc. to promote networking and cooperation between services.

Ayuntamiento de Vitoria-Gasteiz

InvisiCare, monitoring without sensors of the homes of the elderly

Publications Bank of innovations

InvisiCare, monitoring without sensors of the homes of the elderly

JDC-Eshel

Old woman accompanied by her granddaughter. Retrieved from InvisiCare’s website.

A proactive, preventive and community technology system to support older people and their families in a non-invasive, secure, autonomous and community-integrated way. Use the collected encrypted data to detect unexpected patterns or behaviours that require family, social or health intervention. And through artificial intelligence, it warns whoever is relevant. This will help to prevent situations that may pose a long-term problem. In addition to this preventative aspect, it also has a proactive one, since through an App and through a network of communities and accompaniment it provides active and permanent support to the elderly, from the family, the community and public social and health services.

The InvisiCare technology is not invasive as it does not use appliances, does not need contact with people, nor does it need any installation or house maintenance, so it does not face any kind of technological barrier by users. It works thanks to these pillars: the obtaining of data, which is securely and encrypted, by telecommunications and supply operators (TV, telephone, light, water, etc.); the detection of triggers, since it uses the data collected with algorithms to detect abnormal situations that require attention; the generation of notifications, by means of artificial intelligence that decides the type of notification to be sent; and at the same time advises on the type of accompanying and support that needs to be put in place and, if this is a prolonged action, the system will create a roadmap to carry out.

Invisicare

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

DigiContact, remote and immediate social care service available 24h

Publications Bank of innovations

DigiContact, remote and immediate social care service available 24h

DigiContact

DigiContact worker attending a client. Retrieved from the DigiContact website

Remote and immediate 24h care service for people with long-term care needs: disabled people, elderly people with dependency, people with mental health problems or addictions, etc. The service allows extra respite and support to these people’s non-professional carers, avoiding their saturation, and also offers them support if needed. Users can enrol in the service either individually or through social entities. The service adapts to the needs of each user (for example, calling to remind him of a medication, wake him up in the morning, etc.) according to what is established at the time of contracting the service; and, depending on the needs of the person, DigiContact complements online care with presence visits.

DigiContact works through an app that is very easy to use: only by pressing a button it does the call (with image) to be able to receive remote support and attention. The camera is located in the middle of the screen, making it easier to have a sense of proximity and making it possible for professionals to read the verbal and nonverbal signals of the user.

Professionals working in DigiContact (psychologists, nurses, social workers…) have a specialized training to meet all kinds of needs users can have online.

The DigiContact service has proved especially useful during the lockdown times of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is currently a service only available in Dutch.

DigiContact

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

Outcomes Star, methodology for customizing and objectivising Social Services intervention

Publications Bank of innovations

Outcomes Star, methodology for customizing and objectivising Social Services intervention

Triangle

Working one-to-one with Outcomes Star. Retrieved from Outcomesstar.org.uk

Methodology to evaluate and plan customarily the transformation processes of people served by the Social Services. It is designed to be an integral part of social intervention, not a secondary tool; to achieve the most custom-like relationship between the person concerned and the professional using one-to-one work; and to adapt to their specific needs. It is a comprehensive social intervention formula, which allows users of the Social Services to be involved in all parts of their process and to measure their progress with objective indicators.

There are different star models, so the basic methodology can be applied to different services and social situations, by means of different indicators for each case. There are between 5 and 10 outcome areas, which are shared in a star-shaped diagram, making it a visual resource and easy to understand. These areas can be both positive and negative, allowing a visual map of the person’s life to be displayed and advised from their strengths and weaknesses. Each outcome area has a numerical scale (from 1 to 10 or 1 to 5) that is used to evaluate the initial situation of the person through objective criteria that are specified according to the type of service.

Outcomes Star allows the evaluation of the starting point of the given person, and from there the creation of an action plan and objectives based on the different areas of the star. The star is completed regularly to measure the change being produced and to readapt the action in the necessary cases. The collected data can be used for a specific case or interpreted as aggregated data to allow the overall evaluation of the results of a project or service.

To use Outcomes Star, is mandatory to buy the license and take the initial training provided by the company Triangle, which helps to achieve maximum performance and an adaptation of the methodology for each specific organization or service to be used.

Outcomes Star

SMART-UP, Smart Meters to fight against energy poverty

Publications Bank of innovations

SMART-UP, Smart Meters to fight against energy poverty

Ecoserveis, Alpheeis SAS, National Energy Action, Projects in Motion Limited, AISFOR SRL

Technicians advising a neighbour on the use of the Smart Meters

Smart monitors that let you know the energy that is being spent in a household at each time and thus be able to change consumption practices to reduce the energy bill. The Smart Meters incorporate small home screens (In-House) in which each household can visualize its consumption in real time.

This system has been developed as part of a European project between 2015 and 2018, with 5 participating countries. The project also included the training of the various agents who are in relation with vulnerable users: social workers, installers, etc. Training guides can be found for free on the project’s website and are adapted to the context and language of each participating country. This training allowed for gaining the knowledge needed to accompany users in the use of Smart Meters, interpreting consumer data, and knowing the possible measures to be taken to reduce the amount of energy bills.

SMART-UP

OSM, support for essential professionals to deal with crisis situations and strong stress

Publications Bank of innovations

OSM, support for essential professionals to deal with crisis situations and strong stress

NATAL and UASI

Program to help first responders and professionals of essential services (social, health sector, emergency…) manage crisis and stress situations, such as Covid-19.  It features online tools, such as Podcasts recorded by specialists, and also in-person activities, based on the OSM method (Operational Stress Management).

The OSM method works the resilience to adversity, teamwork, stress management, and decision-making in crisis contexts.  It addresses essential service professionals who work not only in situations of physical danger, but also of great psychological pressure, and who suffer from anxiety, depression, stress and, in extreme cases, risk of suicide.  The goal of the OSM programme is that public servants are able to serve citizenship in a more effective and at the same time healthy way.

NATAL

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