The Caring Cafe in Puli Promote Senior Mutual Care
(Summary of 2019 International Conference on Developmental Social Work: Dialogue with Social Innovation)
Who should take care of their senior lives in the declining population in Puli? Hou Xiong Xiao Gou, a life care service Café promotes local, mutual care, so the seniors can live well in the local area, and created an elder-friendly environment. Puli has good tourism resources, but the population aging problem still impact local area continuously. How can Puli improve the population decline situation? The existence of “Hou Xiong Xiao Gou”, a life care service Café, provides hope for the elder caring issue.
Hou Xiong Xiao Gou taking care Puli's elders
"Puli has lost 7,000 people in the past ten years, with 700 people a year, and the population was less than 80,000 people in last November." Said by Kai-Lin Liang, an assistant professor in Depart of Social Policy and Social Work in National Chi Nan University, mentioned in 2019 International Conference on Developmental Social Work: Dialogue with Social Innovation, stating that the population aging rapidly in Puli.
Facing such a major issue like who will take care of the seniors when they are old? The seniors reluctantly shook their heads and replied: "No need to expect as no one will take care of us." Then they continue said: "We should take care of each other; the younger and healthier seniors can take care of the older and unhealthier one." What services are needed the most? Most of the answers are "traffic."
Kai-Lin Liang mentioned that the seniors don’t just go to a doctor; they also have to go out to buy groceries or visit the telecommunications office. The service plan design should be based on the user's needs, so he came up with an idea to create a common core value. In February 2017, Kai-Lin Liang began a demand survey for 10 months and learned about the locals’ life as seniors. He began to find relevant organizations and people to discuss strategy, and try to solve issues with local power.
Therefore, a new mutual help system " Hou Xiong Xiao Gou " meaning taking care each other in Taiwanese, an innovative long-term life care service the industry has created.
Professor Liang commented long-term care should be a combination of cross-industries
It combines the issues of long-term photos with National Chi Nan University, Puli Christian Hospital, Quixotic Implement Foundation, and Alley Culturaltainment Limited. Kai-Lin Liang emphasized that instead of finding a space to serve, but find out what resources can be connected locally, bring long-term photos and senior knowledge into the organization, and transform them into product forms and service designs.
One of the life care mission from "Hou Xiong Xiao Gou " is to design new courses and add entertainment to enhance everyone's knowledge about elder’s care. In addition, they also manage the training of Community Health Promoter. This idea was based on mid-aged people to take a three-hour health promotion class and copying it to teach other seniors back home. But did they teach correctly? No idea. Hou Xiong Xiao Gou tries to come up training method to establish good training teacher.
In 2019, Hou Xiong Xiao Gou opened a second life caring cafe, not to promote the social initiative, but to provide a Mediterranean diet to prevent dementia. Combining the owner of the local bed and breakfast, using local ingredients in Puli to develop meals. The boss brought students from the social work department and aboriginal class to make meals and designed many recipes.
Food materials purchased from Puli locals, a recipe for preventing dementia
Due to the communication with the local industry, and sparks different business model, the development history of " Hou Xiong Xiao Gou " start from trust and value recognition, and connect stakeholders to form a network and then establish a system specification said by Kai-Lin Liang. "When new problems appear, the network will reorganize." Kai-Lin Liang encouraged innovative services to think from the perspective of social work, and work with different field and different industrial subjects, then the resources can become more abundant. In an elder society, we accompany the seniors and work hard to create a friendly environment for the seniors.
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