{"id":849,"date":"2016-03-21T13:32:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T12:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fundaciotutelar.org\/en\/?page_id=849"},"modified":"2020-03-25T13:43:55","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T12:43:55","slug":"portada","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vella.supportgirona.cat\/en\/","title":{"rendered":"Portada"},"content":{"rendered":"

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About us<\/h1>\n

SUPPORT Internal Guidelines & Measures to cope with COVID-19 Pandemic<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As many people at EASPD already know, SUPPORT Fundaci\u00f3 Girona provides a non-stop 24\/7\/365 global, individualized, social service to 1004 adults with psychosocial disabilities (56%), intellectual disabilities (26%), or cognitive impairment as a result of degenerative diseases (18%). Currently, a majority of them (54%) live either in their own home or community-based housing\/shelter arrangements, where they receive tailor-made support based on their needs either psychological, emotional, educational or related to basic everyday activities. The rest of the persons live in different typologies of residential services \u2013 including a small percentage of persons locked in prison \u2013 with most of their needs covered by professionals. It is especially noteworthy that we support about 50 persons with psychosocial disabilities without permanent residence or in a homelessness situation.<\/p>\n

The organisation was born in 2003 to assume the traditional role of guardian – considered a social service under public responsibility when guardian is not a relative – and\u00a0 since the Convention was adopted by Spain we are focusing on introducing legal mechanisms on support decision-making not only helping people taking decisions but managing and coordinating the support to make their decisions a reality. On a normal day, our social support is oriented to ensure the coverage of basic needs, manage the provision of personal care services by hiring and coordinating other service providers, apply for financial benefits, social programmes or services and support people managing their finances while providing legal advice and legal action if needed.<\/p>\n

In March 2020 we directly employ 92 professionals and a group of external services also provide services for the organisation to run their operations. The situation caused by the COVID-19 epidemic has caused had a profound impact, affecting our lives, our task as professionals and our role as service providers as\u00a0 the fast paced turn of events and daily changes causes uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Since the widespread application by the authorities of confinement measures in Catalonia and Spain which turned out in the closing of day-time social and health services, a restriction on general services and a lockout on the access to residential facilities and nursing homes, the organisation, both at a management and at a frontline level, had to react very quickly.<\/p>\n

The organisation has been working round the clock to deploy the measures summarised in the following document and expanded at the end. It is important to understand that all the measures were not developed instantly but some of them were implemented organically as the situation arises.<\/p>\n

Chronologically speaking, the first concrete instructions were issued by the authorities on Thursday 10th<\/sup> February 2020 recommending to close schools and education centres, day-time services and basic social services.\u00a0 Stricter measures had already been confirmed by the authorities on 12th<\/sup> March 2020 affecting the normal service provision of our organisation. Since Wednesday 11th<\/sup> March 2020 the organisation has been working internally to prevent this foreseeable situation and minimise the impact on the normal development of the service and the negative consequences for their service users.<\/p>\n

SUPPORT issued a first set of recommendations to the whole workforce of the organisation, setting the priorities to be considered during professional interventions and also helping the authorities widespread the recommendations to mitigate the risk of infection, considering the purpose of our organisation and focused on the service it provides. Priorities and measures evolve organically as the situation changes.<\/p>\n

The following priorities are set to be considered and followed by SUPPORT professionals<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Ensure that people with less resources (material, financial or social), including the ones living in infra-housing arrangements or in homelessness situations have their basic needs covered and guaranteed (food supply, medication, access to health and access to channels of communication and contact with professionals).<\/li>\n
  2. Persons living in their own homes and with high or intense support needs are the most affected by the closure of day services. This situation potentially increases the emotional stress of caregivers and families. In this case, the priority established is to fully coordinate with personal support staff and document every detail of the situation to the area coordinator or immediate superior to seek alternative formulas to day-time centres, cover basic needs (food, medication and any related activity to help cope with the lockout situation) and share solutions and approaches among the different teams.<\/li>\n
  3. People living in residential facilities. Priority is set to contact professionals from these services and offer logistical help to provide them with basic tools and supplies to continue the service in a lockout situation.<\/li>\n
  4. People with less intense support needs are to be guaranteed to have enough resources to develop themselves autonomously, helping them prioritise, offering logistic when necessary or in urgent situations and helping them understand and follow basic recommendations from the authorities.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    <\/u>Incidents and observations<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

    During the first days of this week, several incidents were reported by the professionals and the organisation is trying to be proactive tackling them:<\/p>\n