Gwanak-gu 'Visiting Community Center' Developing Through Ontact, Communication, and Cooperation

Discovery survey of 8 types of crisis households, transition to non-face-to-face systems like KakaoTalk 'Let's Do Welfare Talk'... 232,379 initial welfare consultations in 2020, ranked 1st among local governments nationwide

Haengun-dong Visiting Community Service Center

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] Gwanak-gu (Mayor Park Junhee) is actively promoting the ‘Visiting Community Service Center’ project despite the difficulties caused by COVID-19, achieving remarkable results.

Due to prolonged social distancing measures amid the COVID-19 pandemic, face-to-face welfare services have been limited and social relationships among residents have shrunk, putting residents in blind spots who have not received timely welfare services at risk of emergencies.

In response, the district is overcoming the challenges of COVID-19 by swiftly transitioning to an ontact (online contact) non-face-to-face system instead of discovering welfare blind spots through direct field visits, and by actively communicating and cooperating with local communities.

To thoroughly identify vulnerable households, this year the district conducted eight types of investigations on vulnerable households in a non-face-to-face manner, including a full survey of resident registration re-registered households and the status of movers and deceased registrants. By October, a total of 14,999 households were counseled, and welfare services were linked to 4,757 households.

The Citizen Finder program, operated mainly by the Volunteer Center and local volunteer camps, has connected 11,781 people with the ontact welfare consultation channel on KakaoTalk, ‘Together Welfare Talk,’ actively identifying vulnerable households in need of help through non-face-to-face methods.

Thanks to these efforts, the initial welfare consultations of the Visiting Welfare service reached a total of 232,379 cases as of November in the welfare statistics system in 2020, ranking first among local governments nationwide.

The integrated case management, conducted through public-private cooperation, regularized online integrated case meetings despite COVID-19 and actively promoted online solution meetings and training, providing customized integrated services to 535 households.

Also, led by the local community security council, 1,221 local residents operate the ‘Our Neighborhood Guardian Angel Hope Discovery Group,’ discovering 1,177 vulnerable households and forming close ties with 170 households to provide continuous care.

The district received high evaluations for its communication and cooperation between public and private sectors and proactive response to the spread of COVID-19, winning the grand prize in the ‘2020 Regional Welfare Project Evaluation - Visiting Health and Welfare Service Provision Category’ hosted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Additionally, 348 ‘Our Neighborhood Officers,’ community service center officials who visit every corner of the village to find residents’ difficulties, carried out 3,383 activities solving various civil complaints such as side dish sharing projects for vulnerable groups, creating flower beds in areas with illegal garbage dumping, and market disinfection activities in cooperation with local police stations.

In particular, the ‘Euncheon-dong Public-Private-Academic Cooperative Village Care Cooking BoGo Project,’ which shares side dishes through talent donations from specialized high school culinary students, and the ‘Nanhyang-dong Green Light Single Elderly Project,’ a partnership between the police station and welfare center to care for elderly living alone, were selected as excellent empathy policies in the ‘Visiting Community Service Center Excellent Empathy Policy’ hosted by Seoul City this year, receiving favorable evaluations.

Park Junhee, Mayor of Gwanak-gu, stated, “Although many projects are shrinking and being implemented in a limited way during the crisis of COVID-19, it is even more important to discover and manage marginalized neighbors during such times. We will further develop the ‘Visiting Community Service Center’ project in preparation for the post-COVID-19 era to enhance the welfare and community of our residents.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.