Care needs are steadily rising and so is the need for innovative community-based services and support of people in need of care and their informal care givers. Specific challenges include for example the fragmentation of health and social services as well as difficulties in accessing home-care services and community-based long-term care. Further, prevention and rehabilitation strategies to enable older people to live independently and be physically, mentally and socially active as long as possible are of great importance. In addition to that, an ongoing challenge is support for informal carers as well as the growing needs of people with dementia.

The project intends to influence national reforms in long-term care through developing, testing and advocating for social innovative community- and voluntary-based services for older people in Austria, Montenegro and the Republic of Serbia.

Specific objectives: 

1) Piloting 6 community care centers in Austria, Serbia and Montenegro
2) Set up of a new-volunteer based service to support people with dementia

Main activities of the project and intended results

• Conducting a community needs assessment and summary report with recommendations, including a paper on financial sustainability

• Development and implementation of a community care center (CCC) concept and provision of country-specific services, such as preventive home visits, home help services, supporting and training of informal carers, etc.

• Development of volunteer-based services for people with dementia, including a tablet-based cognitive training tool

• Evidence-based advocacy for national policy reforms and the dissemination of project results

• Evaluation of the impact of CCCs and volunteer-based services

The project consortium consists of:

• Austrian Red Cross

• Red Cross Montenegro

• Red Cross Serbia

• Competence Center for Nonprofit-Organizations and Social Entrepreneurship


 

Policy Partners:

• Gesundheit Österreich GmbH, National Public Health Insitute Austria

• Republic Institute for Social Protection (Serbien)

• Ministry of Health (Montenegro)

This project is funded by the European Union.