People with intellectual disabilities suffer from psychiatric disorders more frequently at any stage of life and, furthermore, their presence increases the more severe the level of intellectual disability. In fact, up to 41% of people with intellectual disabilities have psychiatric disorders.
This implies for people who suffer from it, a series of limitations to relate, learn or to carry out daily activities. However, people with this double condition, with or without behavioral problems, have the same needs as any other person, and they need adequate support to overcome them, so they must have access to a variety of care services to facilitate their existence and their inclusion in the community and to avoid their isolation or separation from it.
Evidence indicates that people with intellectual disabilities with behavioral or mental health problems who live in community settings, and use community resources, enjoy a better quality of life and greater participation in meaningful activities compared with those living in institutional residential settings.
To improve the lives of people with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems, whose needs cannot be adequately addressed by general disability or mental health resources, and in whom, in addition, the person does not have sufficient family support for management in your home, Grupo 5 offers the specialized service Coviviendas Grupo 5.
These convivial units in Madrid are independent dwellings within the same space with the aim of promoting the autonomy, independence and security of the person. With this new model of care, the emotional well-being of the people served is favored, who, without ceasing to have individual attention, acquire a comprehensive and inclusive development in the community in which decent assistance is guaranteed in their basic needs, in health, psychiatric and psychological aspects to maximize their own abilities
Receiving adequate care is of vital importance so that people with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems develop their individual and social capacities to the maximum, in daily and community life.
In Coviviendas Grupo 5 it is carried out through different areas of intervention; Health, Social support, Social integration, Personal autonomy, Motor, and Cognitive and emotional.
Daily activities are so automated for people that many times we are not aware of the loss at an emotional and motor level that stopping them means. Simply the fact of cooking your own food, or keeping up with housework, are occupations that are part of the necessary structure of the person’s recovery.
Coviviendas Grupo 5 is precisely that: learning to live for oneself, being responsible for decisions and organizing your day to day attending to those basic activities of daily life.
The promotion of autonomy and the professional care that people receive lead to constant objectives of stimulating the acquisition of healthy habits, facilitating knowledge of health resources, working on social skills and personal creativity, improving personal autonomy, or development of psychotherapeutic treatments.
Different programs are developed in each dwelling to serve people according to the different levels of needs and support:
- In relation to the degree of intellectual disability.
- In relation to the intensity of supports related to adaptive behavior.
- In relation to mental illness.
- In relation to the intensity of support related to maladaptive behavior.
For access to these residential places, the transdisciplinary team carries out a precise evaluation of the technical team’s capacity for autonomy, the degree of dependency and the intensity of behavioral problems. And according to the needs of each person, contemplating the strengths and weaknesses cognitive, functional and behavioral, levels of support are defined and provided.
The Group 5 Coviviendas are located in the center of Madrid , in the Avenida de América area, and consist of 3 homes with capacity for 10, 12 and 14 people. These are separated from the architectural and functional point of view, forming a specific and independent therapeutic and residential space. Therefore, they have separate rooms, service spaces and living spaces for each dwelling.
Each unit has its own access, which allows independent operation, but at the same time benefits from some residential support services
existing as the laundry or the restoration.
This service is offered 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and has a care regime adapted and flexible to each person, ensuring adequate protection and respect for privacy, ensuring hygiene and cleanliness and with the clear objective of increase your well-being and quality of life
Grupo 5’s philosophy is to ensure that people live their lives in the best possible conditions, enjoying moments of life. How does the new Grupo 5 Coviviendas service fit into this philosophy?
Through the design of a new model of adapted housing in the community, where a warm and shared space takes place that offers the necessary support to allow people to obtain their maximum well-being and quality of life, favoring their independence and coexistence at the same time. . The end is personal autonomy within social inclusion, which is why, in itself, it is a moment of life for the person.
From a traditional residential and hospital model to a model of homes in the community, what are the differentiating elements of this proposal?
Precisely because it is not a conventional residence, but rather they are coexistence units with reduced places in which skills for independent living are enhanced through all the necessary support, 24 hours a day, so that the person with disability can function in the organization of his own life and in his own home.
Promote normalization, participation and social inclusion, as well as promote the maintenance of the person in their environment, what model or methodology does Group 5 follow to open the community and promote the development of the autonomy of patients?
Individual and personalized attention leads us precisely to establish the needs of each person according to their needs for social support or autonomy.
Our model is based on the promotion of normalization, participation and social inclusion, promoting the maintenance of the person in their environment or in normalized environments and facilitating, as far as possible, the use of community resources and the possibility of carrying out meaningful activities for the person.
We do this with the specialized areas of social support and social integration. The professionals are in charge of developing activities that increase this social participation, with colleagues, increase social skills, knowledge of the resources of the environment or guides of leisure and free time. Likewise, we look at the basic areas of the functioning of their autonomy, motor and cognitive-emotional to address all areas of improvement taking into account their problems and, of course, their way of being.
The team formed by the management of the center, psychiatrist, psychology, social education, social work and occupational therapy, is responsible for working specifically with the person and in turn, jointly with each other, to add more benefits to the person.
Coviviendas Grupo 5 offers care to people with mental health problems and intellectual disabilities, through personalized and comprehensive care to improve their quality of life and autonomy. How does the transdisciplinary team of Grupo 5 develop this individualized plan?
The transdisciplinary team makes an initial assessment of the personal, social and family situation. We rely on a Behavioral Support model designing different programs to serve people with different levels of needs and support: in relation to the degree of disability, in relation to the intensity of support related to adaptive or maladaptive behavior, in relation to the disease mental.
Taking this assessment into account, the professional team establishes an individualized plan with the person, setting objectives and activities that will be carried out in the center to achieve them. They are processes of recovery or personal improvement that need expert, committed professionals who respect the person and with the ability to always propose activities that keep the person in constant progress.
The attention in Cohousing Group 5 focuses on a cultural change in the provision of support, where the patient is at the center of decision-making that affects him, and the professionals and members of the community support him to achieve it, how Does this change benefit the patient?
The person ceases to be a passive agent and the disability and mental disorder cease to be what guide their life. He becomes the protagonist of his own life in which he makes his own decisions. The team of professionals accompanies this decision-making, favoring the exercise of a full-fledged citizen. But the benefit is not only for the individual person, but for the whole of society, since it marks a model of compassionate and inclusive society, in which all people have a place, because it is our individual and collective right.
Accommodation, maintenance, behavioral care… what basic and optional services do Group 5 Cohousing offer?
Accommodation services, welcome and coexistence, maintenance, supervised and adapted menus with qualified personnel, attention to health and personal safety, promotion of habits of personal autonomy, coexistence, interpersonal and social relations, leisure and free time, advice and supervision and behavioral care.
In most cases, the stay of patients in residential units is temporary. Under what circumstances could the stay be
become permanent?
We are committed to the temporary nature of the stays since these homes are designed so that residents acquire the necessary skills to be autonomous and live in their own or supervised flats, either sharing or living alone. The permanent nature is designed for people who require a high number of supports or who do not have another type of resource more suitable for them.
