Busan Social Service Center Launches Pilot Project to Address Care Blind Spots for Elderly Disabled Living Alone

Proactive Care Initiative Through Public-Private Collaboration Model

The Busan Social Service Center (Director Yoo Kyuwon) will fully implement a pilot project in the second half of this year to address blind spots in social services for elderly disabled individuals living alone in the region.

This project aims to prevent isolation and disconnection by providing integrated support for care, housing, and protection services to elderly disabled individuals who fall through the cracks of the institutional care system.

Elderly disabled people living alone, who face the dual vulnerabilities of disability and old age, often cannot access welfare centers or care institutions due to mobility and communication limitations and lack of access to information. To address these structural challenges, the Busan Social Service Center is launching a proactive, public-led intervention model.

Three specialized agencies will collaborate on this pilot project: the Busan Disability Rights Advocacy Agency, the Busan Deinstitutionalization and Residential Transition Support Group, and the Busan Western Senior Protection Agency.

The roles of each agency have been clearly defined. The Busan Disability Rights Advocacy Agency is responsible for identifying eligible individuals, providing initial counseling, and establishing support systems to protect legal and social rights.

The Busan Deinstitutionalization and Residential Transition Support Group assists individuals leaving facilities or disabled people living alone to settle in the community, oversees housing environment inspections, and connects them to daily living support. The Busan Western Senior Protection Agency operates systems for abuse prevention, emergency protection, and crisis response.

The Busan Social Service Center oversees the overall planning, coordination, quality management, and performance evaluation of the project, establishing a "hybrid cooperation structure" in which the public sector designs the program and the private sector implements it.

The project will be carried out in stages.

In the first stage, systems for identifying and counseling eligible individuals will be established. In the second stage, welfare resources will be surveyed and customized plans developed. The third stage will involve the provision of care, housing, and protection services, as well as post-service evaluation.

The Busan Social Service Center believes this model will serve as a turning point for public care by proactively reaching out to those who are hardest to reach. The project is significant in that it demonstrates a new collaborative model for social services by connecting rights protection, housing support, and protection systems into one.

Yoo Kyuwon, Director of the Busan Social Service Center, stated, "Elderly disabled individuals living alone are those most in need of care, yet they are the last to receive institutional support. This pilot project marks the beginning of care that does not wait for people to come, but instead goes out and connects with them directly."

He added, "Together with the Busan Disability Rights Advocacy Agency, the Deinstitutionalization and Residential Transition Support Group, and the Western Senior Protection Agency, we will build 'Busan, a city where care reaches everyone.'"

Busan Social Service Center Launches Pilot Project to Address Blind Spots in Care for Elderly Disabled Living Alone

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