Expansion of at-home assistance on Formentera

The At-Home Assistance Service (or SAD, from Servei d'Ajuda a Domicili) is a basic feature of psychosocial support provided by the Social Services public administration. It consists of a series of actions aimed at facilitating either the development or the maintenance of personal autonomy, preventing or slowing deterioration at the individual and social level, and promoting favourable conditions in family and home life. In so doing, SAD contributes to the integration of patients into their normal home environment and their continued stay there. The services provided may be personal, psychosocial, domestic, educational or care-related in nature.

The positive reception enjoyed by SAD – which in 2012 logged 4,070 hours of support for 34 individuals, although the average number of monthly users was 24 – has impelled the Formentera Island Council's Office of Social Welfare to expand the service to both weekends and holidays. It is important to remember that a household might have more than one occupant receiving minimum hour-long, weekly visits by one or several family-care workers.

SAD, first, is a service specifically-outlined by the catalogue of services of the Law 39/2006 to promote personal autonomy and care for dependent individuals. Care professionals must be provided the instruments necessary to structuring their service around universality, accessibility and efficiency, and as such, in a not-too-distant future, this year-round service will be definitively included in the service portfolio of the Law 39/2006 and compulsory throughout the year.

More important still, at-home care is as a community service experiencing steady growth, where sociodemographic and economic changes have provoked consistent increases in demand. In addition, changes to the traditional family unit, the increase of single-parent families and the increase in the number of individuals living highly-complex situations are all factors that must be considered. In all of these circumstances, the maintenance of a good quality of life – both individually and socially – stands as a veritable challenge.

The object is to expand SAD's service on Formentera and thus maintain and promote personal autonomy while lengthening the period of time spent in the normal home environment – avoiding or postponing stays in residential centres unless these are necessary. Thus, it is hoped that much-needed support will be given during critical moments in patients' lives and early detections made in any risk situations.

To request care through the At-Home Assistance Service the patient must visit the Office of Social Welfare and make an appointment with the social worker, who will then evaluate the case first by means of an interview and later with a home visit if this is deemed necessary. Additional specific documentation will also be requested as part of the application.

A scale based on the family's socioeconomic situation and updated in 2012 by the Tax Ordinance Regulating Public Prices will be used to determine whether the service is provided free of charge or whether a certain percentage of contribution is required.

More information is available at treballsocial@formentera.es or by calling the Office of Social Welfare at 971.32.12.71.