In order to improve the accessibility and quality of social services, a call for applications was launched in summer this year, dedicated to South-East Estonia, to which Valga Municipality also submitted its application for the development of social services to support living at home. On 21 October, the State Support Services Centre decided to approve Valga's application, which will receive a grant of €345 000.
In particular, the project will create a broader content for home services. It will offer more personal assistance and care activities and a much broader range of domestic services, such as housekeeping and administration. The various project activities will make the management of the home service more efficient and resource-saving. Training, supervision, mentoring programmes will improve staff skills and reduce staff turnover. Digital solutions, modern technologies and assistive devices, and environmentally sustainable transport will be introduced. Home care workers will have access to new cars, electric bicycles, hoists to help people who have fallen at home, tools to facilitate household chores, smart devices to run the service, and other necessary equipment. Monika Rogenbaum, Mayor of Valga municipality, thanks everyone who contributed to the application. Special thanks go to Ülla Kimmel, head of the social work service, and of course to the home care workers who provided very valuable input to the project. „Thanks to this important injection of funds, the municipality of Valga is now in a better position to offer home support services. Hundreds of thousands of euros of extra money for the social system will help to address bottlenecks and create a whole new quality in our social system,“ said the Mayor.
* Home care is a social service organised by a local authority with the aim of ensuring the independent and secure subsistence of an adult person in the home, maintaining and improving his or her quality of life. Home help is provided to assist a person with activities which, for reasons of health, activity capacity or living environment, he or she is unable to perform without assistance, but which are necessary for living in the home, such as heating, cooking, tidying up the living space and clothes, and buying food and household goods and other household chores outside the living space.