INVOLVING VOLUNTEERS IN OLDER PEOPLE’S HOUSING SCREENING: THE ACTIVE CARING COMMUNITY PROJECT

• Published in: Innovation in aging Vol. 1; no. suppl_1; pp. 1080 - 1081
• Main Authors: Smetcoren, A., De Donder, L., Duppen, D., Team, B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: US Oxford University Press 01.07.2017
• Subjects: Abstracts
• ISSN: 2399-5300; 2399-5300
• DOI: 10.1093/geroni/igx004.3962

In 2013 the Flemish Government launched a call for innovative projects named ‘Care Living Labs’ to tackle future care challenges such as the rising demand for care, staff shortages and budgetary restrictions. The main objective of these care living labs was to create new care concepts, processes and products and to test them in daily practice. For this paper, the living lab of ‘Active Caring Community’ will be discussed with a specific focus on the ‘OPA-project’. OPA is a Dutch abbreviation for ‘Ouderen wonen PAssend’ which can be translated as ‘appropriate housing for older adults’. The OPA-project wants to examine the housing adequacy of older people’s dwellings in the neighbourhood by including older volunteers in the housing-screening process. The paper will discuss the results of the longitudinal data (12 focusgroups and 11 individual interviews with volunteers and older participants), which were administered during three phases of the project (2014, 2015, 2016). The results indicate that it is of significant importance to inform older people about their housing possibilities. While the OPA project operated in neighbourhoods with a high amount of low housing quality, the OPA project was able to empower older people in their housing situation by stimulating anticipative behaviour. Older volunteers perform home visits with a professional checklist to offer older residents advise about the appropriateness and safety of their house. These volunteers, together with the older resident, search for possible solutions and provide tips and tricks concerning ageing safely at home.