Support for 70 Visit Refusers with Yakult, Early Intervention in Crisis Situations for Delinquent Households Linked with Rental Apartment Management Offices, Identification of At-Risk Households through Welfare Checks on Over 4,000 People Every Two Months... Planned Reinforcement of 20 Members for Nowon Ddokddokddok Care Team, Maintaining Universal Visit Services... On the 23rd, a Business Agreement Assigns Yakult Delivery Workers the Role of Door Monitoring
Nowon-gu (Mayor Oh Seung-rok) announced that it has embarked on establishing a Nowon-type welfare delivery system that strengthens visiting welfare services while maintaining services for universal visit targets.
Since 2015, Seoul City has been promoting the ‘Visiting Community Center’ system, which has now been renamed the ‘Donghaeng Center’ and reorganized from universal visits to a system that focuses on selective visits to households in poverty and care crises.
Accordingly, the district plans to enhance qualitative visits to crisis and poverty households while maintaining universal visit services so that residents who have been receiving care services do not become marginalized and can continue to receive care.
To this end, the district is making every effort to identify households in welfare blind spots, strengthening a welfare system where neighbors care for neighbors through public-private cooperation involving the Nowon Ddokddokddok Care Team, community leaders, and Yakult delivery workers.
Proactive Identification of Welfare Crisis Households
To eliminate care blind spots, the district supports 70 individuals who refused visits during the social isolation survey of single-person households by providing Yakult five times a week and checking on their well-being. This is to enable rapid linkage and support of welfare services in case of crisis situations.
Additionally, the district receives monthly lists of delinquent households with over three months of unpaid management fees through coordination with rental apartment management offices to verify crisis situations and intervene early.
The district also focuses on identifying crisis households using the welfare blind spot detection system. Every two months, about 1,000 additional targets selected and notified by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Seoul City are identified, and welfare checks are conducted on a total of about 4,000 people through phone calls and visits.
Quarterly monitoring is conducted on 2,090 individuals who refused the social isolation single-person household survey, and efforts will be made to identify potential crisis households through re-examination of those deemed ineligible for livelihood benefits under the ‘Bokji Deo Chaeum’ system.
Expansion and Operation of Nowon Ddokddokddok Care Team’s Door Monitoring Project
The district plans to maintain services for universal visit targets and continue providing customized welfare services according to life cycles. In particular, to identify potential welfare recipients among seniors turning 65, the number of members in the ‘Nowon Ddokddokddok Care Team’ will be increased.
Currently, there are 200 active members in the Nowon Ddokddokddok Care Team, with an initial plan to add 20 more members.
On the 23rd, the district signed a business agreement with the Gangbuk branch of Korea Yakult, assigning Yakult delivery workers the role of door monitoring. This utilizes delivery workers who frequently interact with residents to tighten the welfare blind spot detection network. A total of 104 workers have been commissioned to monitor the doors of about 10,000 households.
If any abnormal signs such as piled-up beverages from the previous day’s delivery are found, they can be easily reported immediately via a welfare QR code or Kakao channel.
The door monitoring project, launched nationwide for the first time this year, involves 717 community leaders and 1,710 block leaders checking the doors of all households to see if bills or notices are piling up. In addition to Yakult delivery workers, the project plans to expand through future agreements with apartment security guards.
Oh Seung-rok, Mayor of Nowon-gu, said, “We will establish a welfare delivery system unique to Nowon to ensure continuous welfare services despite changes in the external environment. We will expand the public-private cooperation system and strive to identify crisis households early to support residents in need.”
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