Gwanak-gu 'Urideongne Dolbomdan' Continues Flawless Welfare Services This Year

Gwanak-gu, Where Single-Person Households Exceed 62%,
72 Members of the Representative Personal Safety Net ‘Our Neighborhood Care Team’ Begin Full-Scale Activities in March...
Becoming Reliable Neighborly Support Connecting Isolated Households to the Welfare Safety Net

Gwanak-gu (Mayor Park Jun-hee), where the proportion of single-person households exceeds 62%, newly hired 72 members of the representative personal safety net ‘Our Neighborhood Care Team’ last January and will begin full-scale activities again this year.

Our Neighborhood Care Team members are selected from local residents who are highly interested in helping neighbors in need and have extensive volunteer experience. Each neighborhood is assigned 2 to 6 members who carry out roles such as ▲regular welfare checks ▲identifying crisis situations ▲providing welfare information for socially isolated and care-at-risk households.

Entering its seventh year of activity this year, ‘Our Neighborhood Care Team’ connects isolated neighbors within the community to the welfare safety net, establishing itself as a new form of neighborly support in a society where individualism is increasingly prevalent.

Last year alone, Our Neighborhood Care Team actively engaged with approximately 3,200 households, conducting an average of 10,673 welfare checks and resource linkages per month.

For example, care team members Park OO and Jung OO, working in Daehak-dong, recently visited an elderly person’s home outside of their activity hours due to concern over the individual’s poor complexion. They found the elderly person in a worsened condition, unable even to respond, and immediately contacted the neighborhood welfare officer, who coordinated with 119 emergency services to facilitate hospital admission.

This warm-hearted neighborly care and the accessibility for prompt response in crisis situations are outstanding strengths of Our Neighborhood Care Team.

Our Neighborhood Care Team serves as a reliable safety net monitoring care gaps among vulnerable groups and as a starting point for linking these groups with various welfare resources, significantly reducing welfare blind spots.

This year, the district plans to strengthen care by establishing a focused care system for high-risk groups prone to solitary death, ensuring welfare checks at least once a week. Additionally, flexible working hours within 12 hours per week will be introduced for care team members to improve working conditions, aiming to build a more thorough welfare system.

On the 19th of last month, a job training session on empathetic and considerate communication skills was held for Our Neighborhood Care Team at the district office auditorium.

On that day, communication culture planning expert Song Chang-hyun was invited to conduct training under the theme ‘Communication Skills that Connect Relationships,’ enhancing communication capabilities so that warm-hearted care for neighbors in need can be effectively conveyed through conversation skills.

Park Jun-hee, Mayor of Gwanak-gu, stated, “Since Gwanak-gu has a high proportion of single-person households, we will continue to implement various policies to discover isolated households and support vulnerable groups as a connected network within the integrated care flow.”

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