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Description
The unfavorable socio-demografic and economic status of Gorski Kotar led to an increase of need for a wide range of non-institutional social services and low activity of the public and stakeholders due to years of social passivation and impoverishment of this rural region. Apart from the main institutional social care provider, there are only a few non-governmental and private social service providers in the community. Local authorities and major stakeholders of social services development are aware of that need, especially in the field of care for young people, the elderly and people with psychosocial difficulties, and find them strategically important, but cite the problem of insufficient collaboration as support needed to activate. This project we contribute to the solution by supporting the main actors in the field of social services by establishing an informal initiative of major stakeholders, establishing a local volunteer group and demonstrating and developing our own model of social services in that local community. The model we apply and positively evaluate for the 5th year in a row in providing housing services for rehabilitated addicts is based on the ecological model of community development and provides conditions for creating a sustainable non-institutional system of social services for the benefit of the community and end users. Aware, informed, solidary and activated community in the field of social services, from the governmental level to the end user, are the main changes expected as a result of project activities. We will also strengthen the current network of social services as a direct contribution to the needs of end users and provide local community guidelines for strategic and action planning of the development of social and related activities in the coming period. We find this an added value of the project, as well as our own strengthened role in the community- from grassroot level to social change advocacy.
Summary of project results
The long-term economic decline is accompanied by a continuous reduction of the working and young population (emigration) with an increase in the elderly, which has consequently made the region socially and civically passive. This socioeconomic picture directly reflected the increase in the needs of various vulnerable groups of citizens, but also the lack of necessary social services: although the County recognizes Gorski Kotar as a special area, there is a lack of systematic support for the development of social care. In addition to institutional social care, there are few or no non-governmental and private organizations that provide necessary social services. In particular, services are needed in the area of support for young people at risk, various services for the growing population of the elderly, and responses to the needs of other socially vulnerable groups of citizens: the poor, people with psychosocial difficulties, and some less visible groups that we have noticed through our own activities in the community - long-term unemployed women and young people who do not emigrate, but cannot work emancipate themselves in traditional jobs
By the establishment and activation of a local cross-sectoral initiative for the development of social services in the community was supported the development of new and expansion of existing social services in the community
The mobilization of citizens towards actions in the local community to provide mutual aid was encouraged by establishing and activating an informal volunteer group of local citizens and citizens from Rijeka.
An ecological model of the development of community well-being was demonstrated in the area of support for fellow citizens with psychosocial difficulties, at risk of developing them and social marginalization through the implementation of a set of psychosocial interventions and activities in the community.
By project activities, we strengthened the cooperation of local community stakeholders for the development of social services in the community as an economic and social development factor and a response to the needs of the local population at risk of social exclusion. we wrote a mini action plan - concretized the direction and steps of further development of social services in the community, using the knowledge and resources of the previous positive experience of cooperation. We activated the local and urban population towards civil actions of aid and (in)material exchange, which in the usually passivated social context of the region find it difficult to independently find support. Association Vida, in cooperation with volunteers and its users, organized a set of educational activities in the field of social reintegration, prevention of addiction and preservation of mental health, social entrepreneurship for associations, young people and other interested citizens, as well as psychosocial interventions and counseling for the needy as social services that they are authorized to provide (one stop counseling center).