Description
The project addresses challenges arising from a prolonged life span. The first challenge is many people's unwillingness to retire when reaching old age. The second challenge is a lack of cooperation between sectors responsible for the elderly, a lack of connection between the elderly themselves and a lack of responsiveness and/or inclusion of the elderly in active ageing programmes. The third challenge stems from the fact that many informal caregivers face lack qualifications to treat elderly in their homes. The goal of the project is to reduce differences among the users, and more specifically to develop programmes to prepare people for old age, to establish an intersectoral support network for those providing care for the elderly, their inclusion and the reduction of differences in the quality of home care in comparison to institutionalised care. The established Network 65+ and Clubs 65+ will coordinate the formation and implementation of social prevention programmes. A counselling office, a therapeutic group as well as a rehabilitation team will be established in order to support professionals, the elderly and informal caregivers. The target group are people older than 50, informal caregivers and experts. The project partner, Kun centre for Gender Equality, will organize, with the cooperation of other partners, a presentation of an example of best practices in Norway.
Summary of project results
The project addressed three challenges arising from the extended life expectancy of the inhabitants of Slovenia: i/ unreadiness for retirement or life in old age; ii/ unconnected sectors that take care of older people and lack of responsiveness or inclusion of older people in active aging programmes and iii/ excessive burden and lack of qualification of informal caregivers of older people at home. All three challenges in the long term lead to health inequalities among older people themselves and between older people and the rest of the population. Within the project, 6 major activities for increase of accessibility were developed. The programmes developed have encountered a very good response from the elderly and from the local community. Their development and testing has shown where further investment are required and what the capacity of the local environment is for the reduction of differences between users. In order to increase the capacity of experts that work with the elderly, 123 professionals were trained. The target group (people older than 50 years) was involved in the development of models, services and tools as well as in the implementation and the final evaluation. The programmes and services that were developed will be used by the target group after project completion.
Summary of bilateral results
The Norwegian partner KUN Centre for Equal Opportunities enabled the transfer of good practices. They contributed with their vast experience in the field of research, work with the project target group and highlighted the aspect of gender equality, which further enriched the project activities. The Norwegian partner shared extensive experience from the field of working with older people in rural areas and from the field of embedment on national level. The formal partnership has enabled Slovenian partners to get to know the capacities of Norwegian partners and to build common capacities, which will be used during further collaboration. the bilateral cooperation contributed to the strengthening of the achieved results and to strengthening of partners' capacities.