Preventing Gaps in 'Seosawon' Undergoing Dissolution Process
Direct Service Provision → Private Support and Development
Strengthening Care for Severe and High-Difficulty Cases... Care
Measures to Improve Treatment Including Additional Allowances for Care Workers
The 'Social Service Support Center' set to replace the closing Seoul Social Service Institute will open next month. Seoul City plans to operate a specialized call center to bridge the 'information gap' that prevents people from accessing care services due to lack of information, and also improve the treatment of care workers.
On the 9th, Seoul City announced the 'Seoul Care Service Publicness Enhancement Plan' to enable the local community to promptly provide care whenever citizens need it. The goal is to create a safe care ecosystem by investing 878.6 billion KRW over five years.
This plan was established to prevent care service gaps following the abolition of the Seoul Social Service Institute ordinance last May. Seoul City stated that the Institute, contrary to its original purpose, failed to provide public care services needed for high-difficulty users and vulnerable time periods, and operated more for the convenience of workers than users.
Social Service Support Center Focuses on Supporting and Nurturing Private Sector
The city will set up and operate the dedicated support organization 'Social Service Support Center' within the Seoul Welfare Foundation starting next month to play the role of new public care. Unlike the Seoul Social Service Institute, which mainly provided direct services, this center will focus on supporting and nurturing private service providers. It will ensure the public nature of private services and conduct quality management, consultation, and educational support to prevent service quality disparities among providers.
To improve citizens' accessibility to care services, a specialized counseling call center 'Safe Care 120' will also be pilot-operated from next month. After calling the 120 Dasan Call Center and pressing a specific number, callers will be connected to a counselor who will guide them to the most appropriate information and institutions based on their care needs. A KakaoTalk counseling center will also be operated for hearing- and speech-impaired individuals or those reluctant to use the phone.
Additionally, the city plans to establish and pilot a Care Integrated Support Center next year to enable seniors, people with disabilities, and others to receive all necessary services in one place where they live. The Care Integrated Support Center will serve as a local integrated counseling window, tailored to user characteristics such as age, health status, primary caregiver, and living environment, providing guidance on all available services and linking users to service providers. Four centers, including 'public type' directly operated by autonomous districts and 'private type' utilizing welfare centers and other specialized organizations, will be pilot-operated from next year, with plans to expand based on performance evaluations.
Additional Support for High-Difficulty and Severe Elderly Care
Seoul City aims to minimize care blind spots that often occur for low-income, high-difficulty, and severely disabled elderly and disabled individuals. Elderly requiring high-difficulty care such as bedridden, severe dementia, or large body size will be linked to 'Seoul-type Good Care Certified Institutions' to prevent avoidance. For elderly who are difficult for one caregiver to manage, the city will support additional personnel wages for up to 4 hours per day so that care can be provided in pairs.
From next year, four 'Specialized Activity Support Institutions' dedicated to bedridden, paralyzed, and high-difficulty severely disabled individuals who cannot live alone will be designated and operated. The goal is to reduce the usual 15 to 30 days required to connect high-difficulty severely disabled individuals with activity support workers to a maximum of one week. Designated institutions will receive annual support of 20 million KRW for dedicated personnel wages and operating expenses. Activity support workers caring for high-difficulty severely disabled individuals will also receive an additional monthly 'High-Difficulty Care Allowance' of 300,000 KRW.
For school-age disabled children aged 8 to 19 who require short-term mobility support of up to 90 hours per month for commuting and after-school programs, a monthly support of 100,000 KRW will be provided. The annual usage limit for Care SOS Service will also increase by 200,000 KRW to 1.8 million KRW, and the caps for each of the five services will be abolished.
Improving Care Workers' Treatment... Aiming for 'Sustainability'
Measures to improve care workers' treatment, including enhanced economic compensation and better working conditions, have also been announced. First, when a visiting care worker must care alone for a high-difficulty or severely disabled client who requires two-person care, an additional hourly allowance of 5,000 KRW will be paid. Care workers affiliated with Seoul-type Good Care Certified visiting care institutions and social workers at specialized activity support institutions for severely disabled individuals will receive welfare points worth 300,000 KRW annually.
Robots and other equipment to reduce work intensity and prevent musculoskeletal disorders will be supported. Fifty wearable robots for excretion care will be pilot-introduced in Good Care Certified Institutions, and eight in Specialized Activity Support Institutions. Smart cognitive programs for elderly dementia patients will also be supported. Furthermore, Seoul City will provide professional counseling, including legal advice, for care workers facing emotionally or physically dangerous situations, and plans to produce and distribute a 'Rights Recovery Manual.'
Jung Sang-hoon, Director of Seoul City Welfare Office, stated, "We have focused on creating a safe and reliable care environment where any citizen in need of care can receive high-quality care at their desired time, and where all care service providers and workers are included."
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