Center of Women’s Studies and Policies » Projects

	Center of Women’s Studies and Policies Sofia 1000, 38 Tsar Asen street, phone: ++359 2 981 04 73, E-mail: cwsp@cwsp.bg (+359 2) 980 6265, e-mail:cwsp@cwsp.bg

Empowerment of Family Carers (Care4care)

(CWSP)

About the project

Why? The non formal longterm family care for disabled elderly or people with disabilities makes difficult and sometimes impossible reconciliation of work and family life, decline the health condition of the carers and often isolate them socially. Carers become themselves a vulnerable group, that is invisible for the society.

How? The aim of the project is to improve the ressources of NGOs to work for empwerement of family carers and to provide instruments to family carers to overcome difficulties they face.

Project activities :
Activity 1: Training on Dialogue method for facilitators of family carers' self help groups
Activity 2: Selfassessment of family carers needs
Activity 3: Establishing self help groups in Sofia, Veliko Tarnovo and Karlovo
Activity 4: Informational events

Where?
In Sofia, Veliko Tarnovo and Karlovo

Who?

Project activities are implemented by:

	Center of Women's Studies and Policies Sofia -coordinator Phone. 00359 2 981 04 73, 00359 895 767 911, 00359 888 269 262 е-mail: cwsp@cwsp.bg, www.cwsp.bg
	Association "Vazmojnosti" Veliko Tarnovo Phone.: 00359 888 791 381 е-mail: jeni.s@abv.bg
	Youth and Civil Initiatives in the Rose Valley Karlovo Phone.: 00359335 93300 e-mail: mgird@abv.bg, www.mgird.youth bg.net

The project „ Empowerment of Family Carers" (Care4care) № BG05/1081 is implemented with the financial support of The NGO Programme in Bulgaria under the Europena Economic Area Finacial Mechanism 2009-2014.

Responsibility for the information and views set out in this webpage lies entirely with the author Center of Women's Studies and Policies and under no circomstances does not reflect the official opinion of the EEA Finacial Mechanism and the Programm Operator of the NGO Programme in Bulgaria.

Coordination meeting and training for facilitators in Dialogue method

On the 26th and 27th of January 2015 in Sofia was held the kick off meeting and the training for facilitators for the family carers self help groups. The meeting was attended by the local coordinators and facilitators from Sofia, Veliko Tarnovo and Karlovo .

Participants discussed the content and the organization of the meetings for self assessment of the family carers' needs and the organization of the family carers self help groups and infromational events in Sofia, Veliko Tarnov and Karlovo.

During the first training day, the psychotherapist Virginia Zaharieva presented the main principles of the group therapy and the ways it could be applied in the family carers' self help groups to help them for reducing the stress levels and become more awere about their own needs. The motto of the session was "Help yourself in order to be able to help the others!".

The second training day was dedicated to the Dialogue method and the way it could be applied in the self help groups. The experts from the Center of Women's Studies and Policies presented the theory of the Dialogue method, its main cofeatures and rules of the Dialogue sessions.

The first Dialogue session, held in practice with the participants in the training, was dedicated to the topic "Involving family carers in self help groups". The topic gave opportunity for exchange of ideas between partners on how and where infomation about the meetings and the family carers self help groups could be widespread and on the experience of the partners in involving family carers who are not visible and are not coherent group in order to offer an opportunity to express their opinions and receive care and attention and to be empowered to define their needs.

Meetings for selfassessmant of carers needs

In Februarary 2015 in Veliko Tarnovo (20.02.2015), in Sofia (24.02.2015) and in Karlovo(27.02.2015) were held meetings for self assessment of carers'needs, organized by the partners organizations: Center of Women's Studies and Policies, Association "Vazmojnosti" and Youth and Civil Initiatives in the Rose Valley.

Partner organizations identified and invited family carers trough the Day care centers, the NGOs and trough their own personal contacts with people caring for their dependent family members.

The first aim of the meetings, was to inform the carers about the project aims and activities and to discuss them, as well as to present some good European practices for carares' self organizing and self supporting initiatives, including practices from Norway.

The second aim of the meetings, was carers to do their own needs self assessment, which is a good practice, applieied by some EU social services and NGOs and it is based on a questionnaire, which was developped within the Grundtvig project Self-assessment of their needs by family carers , where CWSP partnered with 14 NGOs and experts from 9 EU countries.

The questionnare was discussed and adapted for the needs of the meetings by project partners on the coordination meeting, held in Sofia 26-27 January 2015.

The carers who particpated on the meetingsq were given detailed information on the practice of self assessmnet of their needs and why and where it is applied. They were given time to read and fill in the questionnaire depending on their needs to understand it and express their opinion.

Self help groups of family carers

Partners have organised nine (9) self help groups' sessions in Sofia, Veliko Tarnov and Karlovo within the project life time.

The self help groups discussed the problems of the family carers and strategies to overcome the every day negative emotions and stress and also why family carers need to support each other. The groups' discussions came to the conclusions that very often people, who take care alone for dependant family members, are practically and emotianally embarrased to cope with evrything, and need very much the support from other family members, other carers, professionalists and local authorities.

Sharing of experineces in the self help groups, helped the participants to see that their situations are not isolated cases and they have around them many people, living in the same town and having the same problems, and that they can cooperate, at least in sharing of the lessons learned and in discussing the barriers and dificulties that they faced and solutions that they found, because as one of the particpants said:

"Sharing of a problem is 50 % a solution of the problem“.

In self help groups were shared many negative emotions and experiences:

Domestic violence
Helplessness
Depression
Exhaustion
Depersonalization
Ingratitude from others
Dissapointment from relatives and family members
Solitude – what happens in the families is not shared easily outside of them
Guilt and doubts wheather carers cope well with the tasks
Co dependence between carers and persons they care for

BUT also:

Ability of carers to face their fears
Resistence and strength developped
Strategies of carers to keep their energy
Awereness that carers should not neglect their own needs
Feelings that carers may benefit from hard situations, when they talk about them and share their experiences
Opinions, that carers should not give up for searching the balance between cares for others and cares for themselves
Confidence, that self help groups may help and may support

We are very thankfull to all participants in the self help groups in Sofia, Veliko Tarnovo and Karlovo who came and dared to share openly their personal emotions. We express deep admiration and gratitude to those people who have very busy every day care schedules, but found time to come and to contribute needs and problems of family carers in Bulgaria to become more visible and to be discussed !

Awereness raising events

On the 25th of September in Karlovo and on the 1st of October 2015 in Veliko Tarnovo were held the information and awereness raising events under the project.

The Center of Women's Studies and Policies and the partners' organizations: Association "Vazmojnosti", Veliko Tarnovo and Youth and Civil Initiatives in the Rose Valley, Karlovo, presented the results of the project and shared the lessons, learned from the meetings for self assessment of the family carers needs, as well as from the self help groups, that were piloted in the three towns from February to June 2015.

In Karlovo was shared the initiative of the social workers, who participated in the self help groups under the project, to enlarge the practice of self help groups and to contribute for the selforganizing of one more self help group of the parents of children with dissabilities, who visit their social center, operating under project "Bettre together !" in Karlovo.

Awereness raising events gave opportunity for open disussions of the recomendations of carers from Sofia, Veliko Tarnovo and Karlovo to employers, local and national authorities. Most of the recomendations towards the municipal Social Services Directorates in Karlovo and in Veliko Tarnovo, were on improving the access to and the information for the planned and the operating social services, that carers could use in municipalities. On the other hand, carers shared that some of the procedures for receiving for example medical goods are very complicated and people with dissabilities still have difficult access to them. Criteria for access to the programm Personal Assistant were also discussed and participants shared their proposals how they could be improved, nevertheless the scope of the programm in the country is very small.

On the 28 th of October 2015 was held the final informational event in Sofia (House of Europe, 124 Rakovski street )

The event gathered carers and representatives of the Social Services Directorate in the Municipality of Sofia, the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the Ministry of Justice, the National Social Security Institute, the Agency for People with Dissabilities, the Economic and Social Council, as well private services' providers in Sofia and NGOs.

The event gave opportunity to project partners to make an overview of the project activities and the results, experiences and recomendations, shared, thus making the problems of carers in one small, one medium and one big city in Bulgaria more visible. Special attention was givven to the recomendations of carers for improvement of the draft Law on Persons and Measures for Support, which were shared with the representatives of the Ministry of Justice and NGOs ,that worked on the draft law.

The informational events in the three towns provoked many vivid discussions on carers'needs and the responses of the social system and on the creteria for access to services as well as on the opportunities social security system to envisgae the risk of long term care, as well as on the instruments for empowerment of carers to slef help and the benefit of the social solidarity in Bulgarian society.