“We do not have communities,” the mayor of Vysoká nad Uhom wrote to us, explaining why they lack a community plan for social services. About 750 people live in the village near the Ukrainian border. There is an elementary school, a kindergarten, two churches, a hunting association and more than 200 seniors – the inhabitants who are most dependent on help.

In order for local governments to keep track of what such vulnerable groups need, they need to map the terrain and put it down. Since 2009, the law has required it. Lunch delivery for seniors? More babysitters? It is difficult for them to know this in Vysoká nad Uhom.

The case of this village is not unique. The Institute for a Well-Managed Society (SGI) has found that the rule applies: the smaller the community, the less chance it is that it does not plan community services as it should. Of the selected sample of municipalities with less than 500 inhabitants, half of them either did not have a community plan or, despite their obligations, did not publish it and did not provide it on request. However, large municipalities also have problems with it. Almost none of the thirty largest cities in Slovakia planned social services for a time, many only very formally.

This is one of the reasons why SGI, in cooperation with Karlova Ves, the district of Bratislava, has decided to set an example of how to do so. Not only have we gained valuable data on what vulnerable groups of people in Karlova Ves need, but we have also captured the process in a manual that can serve others.

The data help – for example, the nurses in Karlova Ves

Information is the key to quality social services and satisfied citizens. That is why we have been collecting hard data and opinions from the public, providers and affected people in need for several months. We used research tools such as demographic analysis, questionnaire survey, emotional maps, focus groups or semi-structured interviews. In this way, we managed to draw a map of the needs of the people of Karlova Ves, who depend on the help of others. One of our most important findings: we need to pay more attention to babysitters. They often work with clients who have a worse mental state or confuse them with cleaners. It is not uncommon for them to deliver lunches, make purchases, fill out extensive work reports or even polish family silver in addition to caring for the elderly. The result is conflicts, exhaustion but also burnout. Thanks to our analysis and recommendations, we also managed to prepare a manual for the work of nurses in the Karlova Ves district, which specified what they must do and what they should not.

Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice: You have pleased us, we will use the manual in teaching

While working on a community plan for the people of Karlova Ves, we found a surprising thing: many residents do not even know that they could get help from the municipality in their life situation. And even if they know, they often have no idea how to get to it in practice. That is why we have written several articles about the importance of social assistance and presented it in retirement clubs or in front of local deputies. We have also prepared an animated video that explains the topic in an engaging and “half-heeled” way. We have distributed a step-by-step manual on how to plan social services to dozens of offices, universities and professional organizations throughout Slovakia.

 

“You have made us happy by systematizing community planning. The manual will find application in our department. Within the methods of social work, we have a separate subject Community and community social work, “responded from the Pavel Jozef Šafárik University in Košice.

 

In the end, we may have convinced some skeptics in municipal offices. “I will still have the community plan done,” the mayor of Repište, a village with 280 inhabitants in the Štiavnica Mountains, told us after the meeting. Like Vysoká nad Uhom, they did not consider the planning of social services important. But in the end, they changed their minds. The mayor does not want to leave his successor with an unfulfilled obligation that would not hinder the development of the village.