Innovation: SenioriNET
Innovation: SenioriNET
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Romania
AAI Domains:
Independent, healthy and secure living (care to older adults, access to health and care services)
Participation in society (political participation)
In 2012 the World Health Organisation’s European Regional Office identified four strategic priorities for active and healthy ageing: healthy ageing over the life course, supportive environments, health and long-term care systems fit for ageing population and strengthening the evidence base and research.
These priorities were supported by five priority interventions:
Promoting physical activity
Falls prevention
Vaccination of older people and prevention of infectious diseases in health care settings
Public support to informal care giving with a focus on home care and capacity building for geriatrics
Gerontology among the health and social care workforce
In many new member states of the EU there is considerable scope for action in this area and this socially innovative project is particularly relevant to the final two priority interventions.
The SenioriNET project is a partnership project that is lead by Confederation Caritas Romania, an umbrella organisation for the national and international Caritas organisations operating across Romania. Overall, Caritas provides support to more than 25,000 people in need of home care and medico-social support in over 360 locations making it one of the largest providers of social care.
Other partners include the 4Change Association, a non-governmental organisation committed to supporting the development of the wider voluntary sector through research, training and promoting social responsibility, and the White Yellow Cross Foundation who are pioneers of home care services for older and disabled people. The Association of Mutual Bucharest also promotes social care and social responsibility in the capital while the Habilitas Association is a non-governmental organisation that aims to professionalise social services.
Romania has two types of social care provision, medical and social-medical, that operate under different systems and regulations with municipalities often reluctant to make additional provision for social care lest it undermine informal care and the voluntary sector. With funding from the Swiss contribution to the enlarged European Union under the Civil Society Participation theme, the SenioriNET project aims to increase public awareness and support for informal care performed by hundreds of thousands of people every day across the country and to work to improve the provision of social care at the local and national level.
In partnership with more than 50 local social care organisations, the project collected examples of good practice and promoted support for home care by representing the interests of people in need of social care and their carers with policymakers at all levels by creating the first nationwide network of organisations active in social care for older people. There is considerable scope for improvements in the provision of social care right in Romania and across Europe but the SenioriNET project is taking steps along that path.
In relation to the active ageing index, SenioriNET is relevant to improving the care provided to older adults and to political participation at both the local and national levels through public awareness campaigns and lobbying policy makers. Another aim of the project is to improve access to health and care services through sharing good practice and developing new approaches within the Romanian context.
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