Fenix, a therapeutic garden and orchard for drug addicts

Publications Bank of innovations

Fenix, a therapeutic garden and orchard for drug addicts

Grup ABD

Through urban agro-ecology, the Fénix project in the city of Barcelona promotes the social and occupational inclusion of people undergoing treatment for drug addiction. The therapeutic garden and orchard, developed under the slogan “Cultivating new opportunities”, also contributes to destigmatising the group of people with addictions.

The project is located on the grounds of the Care and Monitoring Centre (CAS) in Sarrià (Barcelona), which has become a climatic refuge within the city. It has a total of 10 hectares and works by applying regenerative cultivation techniques, i.e. the approach to plant production is respectful, ecological and sustainable. The facility enables the personalisation of social insertion itineraries that improve the employability of the participants, who take part in the whole process, from the cultivation and maintenance of the plants to the organisation of the tasks and economic planning, in relation to the promotion and sale of the cultivated products. The participants receive basic training in agroecology and gain experience in social entrepreneurship and marketing of the products. The project also enables participants to be self-sufficient in food and promotes responsible consumption and a sustainable food system.

The project has a community aspect, with the garden being at the same time a space for exchange and use by organisations and people from the district who need to meet or carry out outdoor activities. In addition, the resulting food is destined to social services, so that people with addictions who participate in the Garden and Hort Fènix multiply the social impact they receive by helping other people.

Moods, promoting good screen use among teenagers and young people

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Moods, promoting good screen use among teenagers and young people

Nous Cims Foundation and Adsis Foundation

Community intervention project with a comprehensive approach to prevent risks in the use of new technologies among adolescents and young people and promote their proper use.


The Moods Project was born from the realisation that, in a modernity governed by social networks and mobile phones that change the way we live and relate to each other, new technologies pose new challenges and risks –such as addiction, pathological gambling, grooming, cyberbullying or social isolation– to be prevented. Specifically, it is aimed at adolescents and young people, as the name of the project indicates: mood is the English word that refers to the state of mind and is a colloquial expression widely used among young people.

The project is developed through a set of workshops and interventions that are carried out in secondary schools with the aim of promoting the good use of screens among students. It is well known that the use they make of social networks and new technologies is diverse and can have consequences on mental health. Through the workshops, participants reflect on and become aware of their use of screens. Thus, the project provides them with tools that allow them to identify risky and addictive behaviours. In addition, the workshops encourage critical thinking –allowing them to reflect on video games and online gambling, for example– and debate on the values that are transmitted through networks and on the need and importance of combining virtual leisure with live leisure. The project includes an impact evaluation plan that allows measuring and assessing the changes produced among participants through questionnaires.

The project has been implemented in the neighbourhood of Horta Guinardó, in Barcelona, and in Quatre Carreres, in Valencia, where a team of professionals has given workshops to young people aged between 12 and 16 in secondary schools in the neighbourhoods. Apart from workshops in secondary schools, the project also includes prevention workshops in leisure and free time organisations and training for families and teaching teams from the schools.

Gavius, a virtual assistant for the processing of social assistance applications

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Gavius, a virtual assistant for the processing of social assistance applications

Gavà City Council

Intelligent assistant that provides information to citizens about the social assistances available to them, and at the same time facilitates its processing in a convenient, fast and simple way. It is based on a user-friendly application, which allows digital identification through biometric recognition, and automates the process of applying for aid and subsequent collection.

The Gavius project aims to contribute to moving towards more proactive and innovative social services, adapting technologies to the needs of individuals and social professionals. The assistant is accessible both to potential beneficiaries who identify themselves in the application, as well as to social services and citizen care professionals, for whom it provides support when granting and processing social assistance.


Gavius is an example of joint work between companies, citizens, administration and research centers. Thanks to a model based on machine learning, the application is able to adapt to the casuistry of each person and simplify and streamline the bureaucratic processes of the social services of local administrations.

Konekta2, intelligent sensorization of homes for the elderly

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Konekta2, intelligent sensorization of homes for the elderly

Fuenlabrada City Council

A virtual assistant for the elderly that is able to detect changes in movements and routines at home to alert in the event of an incident.

The program is aimed at elderly people with cognitive impairment who live alone. It is a pilot project for which 30 people have been selected, with the intention of being extended to other users once the pilot phase is completed.

Through sensors placed on doors, household appliances or corridors, changes in these can be detected. First, an analysis of each person’s routines is carried out to detect anomalies and check the elderly person’s condition. By this way, if a door is opened at dawn, or the front door is not opened all day (indicating that the person has not left the house), it can be detected and the people nearby can be alerted (every time there is a change, a message is sent to the next contact person). The tool has a voice-controlled virtual assistant, a sensor for opening the front door and the refrigerator, and motion sensors that can be placed in different areas of the house.

The assistant also alerts the emergency services in the event of an accident, since it works as a complement to the help button or tele-alarm that users have at home. In addition, users can call for help using only their voice.

The pilot project makes it possible to anticipate cases of risk, avoiding emergency situations thanks to preventive work. It is a tool that helps the elderly to spend more of their lives at home safely.

Emantik, a service for the detection and care of child and adolescent discomfort

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Emantik, a service for the detection and care of child and adolescent discomfort

Andoain Town Hall

Programme for the early detection and care of situations of vulnerability, discomfort or violence towards children and adolescents.

Emantik is based on an application (Kanjo) that systematically records the emotional state of the pupils of the three schools that have implemented the programme (Aita Larramendi Ikastola, La Salle-Berrozpe Ikastetxea and Ondarreta Ikastetxea) through a tablet and an algorithm that subsequently analyses the emotional patterns in order to detect cases of risk early on. The main function and objective of the programme is to help children and adolescents to learn emotional management, as well as to prevent cases of risk and vulnerability, or a possible situation of violence or suffering of the child or adolescent.

It is a system whereby three times a day (when arriving to school, after playground time and at the end of the school day) children and adolescents have to indicate in the tablet the emotion that best reflects their mood from among calm, contentment, anger, fear, disgust and sadness. In this way, boys and girls learn to identify their emotions, and on the other hand, the analysis of the data makes it possible to detect their emotional states as well as their evolution, in order to prevent situations of isolation, bullying, or other types of situations of discomfort or vulnerability.

The Kanjo system does not have access to the personal data of the boys and girls at any stage of the process, and only the schools have the capacity to link the anonymised IDs of the algorithm with the data of their pupils.

Emantik

myCarenet, community support network for people with dependency

Publications Bank of innovations

myCarenet, community support network for people with dependency

myCarenet

Image from myCarenet.

App that allows the person with some kind of dependency or their reference relative to weave and co-create their own support network in their home and their usual environment.

This tool allows maintaining and increasing meaningful social relationships (family, friends, neighbours, etc.) from an inclusive and community point of view, and at the same time prevents an eventual feeling of unwanted loneliness.

The person can contact and contract professional social and health care services on demand, or contact and receive community support for activities of daily living. In this way, myCarenet makes it possible to share the burden of care, lightening the load of the main caregiver.

In addition, both people with dependency and their support (family, community or professional) can access continuous and personalized training that promotes self-care and enables support persons to carry out a quality social and care task.

On the other hand, within the values of the circular economy, myCarenet promotes dignified and regulated work for people with difficulties in finding work and who, with a correct training itinerary, can find employment stability in the social and healthcare sector.

myCarenet

TeknoAdineko, technology and community action against the social isolation of elderly people living alone

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TeknoAdineko, technology and community action against the social isolation of elderly people living alone

Agintzari

Image from Freepik.

Intelligent technological platform that allows for the detection and knowledge of situations of solitude and social isolation among the ageing sections of the population, and for effective responses from the community and social services.

TeknoAdineko has developed a Big Data Risk Assessment system, which allows the organization, storage, manipulation, analysis and modelling of large amounts of data from the real world and linked to a spatial reference. It identifies people older than 65 who live alone and catalogues them at different levels of vulnerability or risk based on physical and health indicators, relational, economic, housing, basic resource distance and aid, etc. It feeds on information from the sponsor, the cadastral and municipal social services; as well as information identified by agents of the person’s community network (Beharis), previously trained in social gaze.

The TeknoAdineko smart tool is targeted at three different profiles of people: fragile elderly people who are in a solitude situation that negatively impacts on maintaining their autonomy; community volunteers who, through simple training, participate in identifying situations of vulnerability; and municipal professionals who incorporate new technology tools and exploit the community’s potential for social intervention.

TeknoAdineko is based on knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the community networks and key agents of each municipality or territory, and is being implemented experimentally in both urban and rural municipalities of Euskadi. It includes a technological tool that allows the situations of social isolation to be detected; a community activation program and key actors from each territory; and an app that allows connecting to municipal social services.

Agintzari

Alella Poble Cuidador, a community support network in loneliness, illness and the end of life

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Alella Poble Cuidador, a community support network in loneliness, illness and the end of life

Ajuntament d’Alella, Fundació Sant Francesc d’Assís and Fundació La Caixa

Picture taken from Alella Poble Cuidador’s web.

Community network that promotes the articulation of collective action to care for people in the municipality who suffer from loneliness, a chronic illness or are at the end of life, and their families, so that they feel cared for and accompanied , whether they live in their private home or live in any of the health and social entities in the village. The goal is to create a safe, friendly, and caring community environment for these people.

Alella Poble Cuidador acts in three areas of intervention: care and support, training, and education and awareness. In each area of ​​intervention it has structured a set of resources (families, social and health centers, schools, companies, etc.) to promote the development and use of personal and community skills and resources for the care and the accompaniment, and to assert, throughout the life cycle, the values, beliefs and practices for good living and good dying.

At the same time, it carries out activities such as care and support; group meetings of bereaved people and caregivers; training of professionals and caregivers; support for the preparation of the advance directives document; exchange of orthopedic and sanitary equipment; support for the organization of farewell ceremonies; intergenerational musical encounters; and theatrical lectures.

Emotional and professional support available to everyone.

Citizens of the municipality can participate in the network by registering, at no cost, to benefit from the services offered; becoming network partners and participating in working groups; becoming network volunteers; collaborating financially; or following current affairs and network news.

A consultancy has externally evaluated the results of the program, which can be consulted on the web. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. The network has, in addition to volunteers, a team of specialized professionals.

Alella, poble cuidador

Predictive tool for vulnerability situations, to improve the planning of social services.

Publications Bank of innovations

Predictive tool for vulnerability situations, to improve the planning of social services.

Associació Benestar i Desenvolupament (ABD), Momentum Analytics

Image taken from the Unsplash website.

A predictive tool of needs and situations of vulnerability and inequality of the population that, based on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence algorithms, makes it possible to describe the socio-demographic and economic characteristics of families in the territory with the aim of helping municipal social services to better understand current real needs, predict future needs, size the portfolio of services and plan resources.

The tool has been applied for the first time in the neighbourhoods of the municipalities of Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Premià de Mar and Mollet del Vallés, and has enabled a better understanding of the impact of Covid on the most vulnerable population, with the participation of the social services, basic information management and open government teams of these three municipalities.

Momentum Analytics, together with the Asociación Bienestar y Desarrollo ABD, after years of developing the solution and talking to all the actors in the sector – central and regional governments, town councils, provincial councils, county councils, the third sector, foundations, associations, NGOs, energy companies, water companies – have crystallized the project with the implementation in these first three municipalities.

According to the expert Dr. Josep Maria Picas, “we are at the beginning of a project that will be fascinating, based on the information from the data of the social services of the town councils which, together with other community services such as health, will allow our assistance to the population to be unbeatable. We have a great opportunity”.

Circles
ADB Associació Benestar i Desenvolupament

Projecte Alimenta, community kitchens and food workshops to get away from welfarism

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Projecte Alimenta, community kitchens and food workshops to get away from welfarism

Ajuntament de Barcelona, Fundació Privada Jovent

Image from the Ajuntament de Barcelona website.

A programme to escape from the welfare-based approach to food aid. It offers community kitchens and workshops where people who receive food can also learn how to optimize their food, prepare healthy dishes and extend food preservation. This promotes the right to decent, sustainable and healthy food among people in a situation of food vulnerability.

Each Espai Alimenta is located in a different area of the city and managed by a social organization. The aim is not only to offer a space to meet needs, but the programme also seeks to enable people in need of food aid to create a community bond and exchange knowledge.

Ajuntament de Barcelona