Be Happy in Life

Families with a disabled person who was in need of care, face too many problems in their daily lives. Some of these problems may be systemic problems and some of them were psycho-social problems. It was a difficult process to accept that having a disabled person in need of care. And to tackle the difficulties it made the situation even harder. Unfortunately, it was not easy to overcome these problems for families, who were unrecognized by society and somehow ignored, without getting support.

The inward and outward experiences of these families who were exposed to social exclusion were mixed with each other. Because, these families were turned into individuals who didn’t not receive social support, who were constantly blamed and accused, who had difficulty in controlling their behaviours related to the disability of they had the disabled people, and definitely who were under constant stress anxiety. They always needed to talk to someone and regular counselling about their problems. Their private lives had lost their balance. In fact, family caregivers had almost become unable to allocate personal time to themselves.

The topic here was that what the special needs of the family members who were playing a role as caregivers could be and how we could help them professionally for answering these needs. In order that professionals who were working in social and health fields should use, it was necessary to carry out qualified studies addressing the needs of these families.

Year(s): 2018-2021

Target group(s): Caregivers and healthcare professionals working with people with disabilities/ disabled persons.

Website or other online channels: https://saglikarge.istanbul/portfolio/be-happy-in-life/

Methodology

Within the scope of our project, 6 workshop activities were planned. Except for the Italian partner, all partners held the events. The number of participants was changed according to the pandemic rules of the countries. The Turkey team organized an event with more participation than planned in order to achieve the targeted total number. (mooc.saglikarge.istanbul).

Activities:

• 6 international TPM meetings,

• 2 international training courses,

• 5 local multiplier events,

• The dissemination events as local,

• One international scientific research was organized and published.

Type of product

Paper-based material Online resource Video clips / Films

Brief description of the outcomes

The outputs planned within the scope of our project were completed with the contributions of our partner institutions and our local project team. Within the scope of intellectual outputs, 5 of the 7 targeted outputs were funded. All of these outputs were planned and completed, except for the O5 output. Although the O1 output was not funded, it was published by our team as a scientific publication and congress paper. In addition, our project guided its other outputs. O2 - O3 - O4 outputs were completed by all partners. O6 output was complete except for Denmark and Italy partners. The O7 MOOC website, the biggest output of our project, was completed with the contribution of all partners. (mooc.saglikarge.istanbul).

Impact on target groups / Transferability potential

The project, which was originally planned for social inclusion, tried to identify the current situation in 6 different European countries and developed a curriculum, solution suggestions and educational videos. In the outputs, they focused on family caregivers and professional caregivers problems both in their private life and in their social life and investigated caregivers rights and regulations regarding them in 6 partners countries and prepared detailed informative and conclusion documents.

Thanks to all this content published on the MOOC website as it was aimed to solve the needs of caregiver family members and health professionals and to increase their happiness levels they were able to reach the caregivers and their families and of course law-makers all around the world as the documents includes information about laws and serious statistics (regarding the caregiver's rights and their regulations).

Promoter of the initiative: İstanbul İl Sağlık Müdürlüğü

Country: Turkey

Languages available: English Turkish

Website or other online channels: https://istanbulism.saglik.gov.tr/