House of Support – Services for dignified life of elderly in BiH and Georgia

Background

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Georgia (GE) are faced with a rapidly ageing population, the break-up of the multi-generational family model and the outflow of young people from their hometowns and villages leading to increased numbers of single elderly households that lack caretakers. In addition, the elderly are mostly an invisible target group that is often by-passed by social policy. In both target countries, elderly mobile care is mostly operated by NGOs or private companies, while state programmes are limited in their scope and outreach or not specifically tailored to the needs of elderly. The problem with this fragmented care market is the lack of unified care standards. At best, most service providers use their own care and training standards, while others employ low-skilled carers, offering expensive or poor-quality services. All these factors leave many elderly persons in highly vulnerable positions, hampering their right for “Ageing with Dignity”.

Objective

This program strives to foster increased access to mobile care services for elderly people in four communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Georgia and contribute to an inclusive policy framework which strengthens their position in society and ensures the fulfilment of their elderly rights. This is achieved by setting up financially sustainable social service providers (‘Houses of Support’) that a) develop and pilot integrated mobile home care service models to safeguard uniform quality standards, and b) act as knowledge hubs for mobile home care services, render capacity development for caretakers, offer counselling on elderly issues and Healthy Ageing activities and conduct awareness raising and advocacy.

The developed model is well rooted in international best practices and Austrian profound knowledge in integrated home care services that is systematically shared by Hilfswerk Austria with its project partners. The project is also closely interlinked with the ADA-financed business partnership “House of Support – Elderly Homecare Sustainable Service Provision in BiH” (2020-2022).

Activities

• Needs assessment of communities and clients in GE
• Organisational set-up of House of Support in GE and planning of business models and service packages
• Training mobile care teams and volunteers in GE
• Piloting in GE and on-going quality management
• Healthy Ageing activities (in GE) and consultations
• Continuous provision of elderly mobile care in B&H
• Advocacy and awareness raising of general public
• Cross-country B&H-GE peer exchange and knowledge management

Target groups / Beneficiaries in both countries

In total at least 1.000 persons and more than 40 organizations will be directly included in the project:

• 240 elderly directly benefitting from mobile services and 140 persons from Healthy Ageing activities
• 450 family members
• 42 caretakers and min. 20 volunteers
• 95 persons working in municipalities
• At least 60 staff members of NGOs/CSOs