News Details

CERCIMAC is a cooperative, equivalent to IPSS that, since its foundation in 2004, promotes the social inclusion of people with disabilities.

CERCIMAC felt the need to extend its service provision to an innovative response and this will became stronger when the application for the implementation of the pilot projects under the Independent Life Support Model came up.

On March 25, 2019, CERCIMAC's Independent Life Support Center was implemented, with the geographical area encompassing the district of Bragança.

The first activity of dissemination of CAVI was to go through all the villages of the county to meet with the presidents of the board giving him to know the innovative project, in order to be signaled to us possible recipients and possible personal assistants.

In June 2019 we participated in the Feira de S. Pedro, an event of great interest to the population of the county and district, 1588 leaflets were distributed to visitors. The presence of the CAVI team at the event was extremely important both to make known the Project that was still unknown to all and for the registration of people to attend the initial training of Personal Assistants.

The first initial training sessions will take place in September 2019, at which time a large grant of personal assistants will be provided.

October was dedicated to the selection of recipients and their personal assistants and here our selection work was greatly facilitated, as many of the possible recipients appointed the personal assistant.

The actual provision of the personal helpdesk service started on 1 November 2019. In the context of the dynamics of the activity, the following results should be noted:

• Selection of recipients by priority criteria defined in the rules of procedure. 26 people were part of the project, of whom 3 left by change of residence, 2 by death and 2 by integration into ERPI;
• Definition of the needs of the recipients, despite the numerous activities that are part of the personal assistance service, the most requested are the support activities in the areas of hygiene, food, maintenance of health and personal care;
• Selection and hiring of personal assistants, since the beginning of the provision of the personal assistance service until now 17 persons have been hired to perform the duties of personal assistants, 13 remain, with 4 terminations, 1 at the request of the recipient person, 2 at the request of the personal assistant himself and 1 on the death of the recipient person;
• Provision of personal assistance service of 491 hours per week at the moment to 19 beneficiaries, 13 personal assistants being part of the project;
• Conducting 131 home visits to prepare PIAPs and monitoring;
• 37 visits to CAVI facilities to publicise the project;
• Carrying out 748 (non-face-to-face) demarches to monitor PIAPs and miscellaneous matters;
• CERCIMAC's CAVI has instituted a six-monthly assessment of the PIAPs;
• Monthly monitoring is carried out, or in extraordinary situations it is done more than once a month. This monitoring is preferably carried out in person;
• Application of an annual satisfaction questionnaire to recipients, informal carers and personal assistants.
• From November 2019 to date, 45 616.34 hours of personal assistance have been made available.

Concluding summary: As CAVI was an innovative pilot project, the technical team followed a path where everything was new, starting by taking small steps, in a short time CAVI began to take shape and all the work done and to perform began to make sense.

The technical team has always excelled in the relationship of proximity and trust both with recipients and families and with personal assistants, through home visits, telephone contacts and / or via e-mail, as well as face-to-face services at CAVI facilities.

Even proclaiming and implementing this type of relationship, obstacles and issues related mainly to interpersonal relationships have arisen, since the relationship in the personal assistance service is very one-to-one (recipient/personal assistant). Since the beginning of the personal assistance service the technical team elucidated and sensitized all the elements involved to the importance of there being great openness in the relational circle technical team, recipients and personal assistants, because only in this way would be able to mitigate and mediate conflict situations avoiding the evolution to situations that lead to the rupture of the professional link recipient and personal assistant. To prevent awkward situations, the technical team developed the Guide for Beneficiaries, which explains what it is advisable to do so that there is a good relationship between the recipient and personal assistant, since a proper integration will help the personal assistant to adjust quickly, as well as better develop their professional skills and meet the needs of the recipient. Taking into account the wear and tear caused by the duties of the personal assistant and the various episodes that have been reported to us, we consider it urgent to carry out stress management and self-care sessions, 3 times a year, taught by a technique in the area of clinical psychology.

In general we had two situations in which this rupture occurred, one at the will of the personal assistant and the other on the part of the recipient.

The CAVI team has taken root and has remained cohesive, and the vast majority of the elements have been together since the beginning.

The walk has been very rewarding, it is similar to taking a blank canvas and giving each brushstroke in a unique and colorful way from which a Work of Art is born that when contemplated magnifies us.

“God wants, man dreams, the work is born.”

Fernando Pessoa