The social services system in Belarus is constantly developing and new services are being introduced. This was stated by Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Protection Marina Artemenko at the press conference "Respect. Care. Responsibility," dedicated to the Day of the Elderly, BelTA informs.
"Last year we introduced a service of day care for people with cognitive impairment (dementia), started training family members to care for an elderly person, organized club work at home. We reached almost 2,500 people with these new services, which is 1.5 times more than we did in all of 2021. We are also developing new social technologies. For example, we have such a form of social services as a substitute family. This is when social services are provided in the form of shared housing. That is, a person being cared for lives with the family or has a caregiver living with him or her. They share a household. This form is actively developing, there are 311 foster families in the country," the deputy minister said.
Another social technology is social services on the basis of an annuity contract. "This is when the local regulatory body enters into an agreement with an elderly citizen and the apartment that he owns is transferred to the ownership of the Executive Committee, for which social services are organized either at home or in a boarding house. The person is also paid an annuity. We have concluded 31 contracts of annuity for life," said Marina Artemenko.
Ministry of Labor: single elderly people are under special attention of social services
Another important area of social security is to change the information agenda in relation to senior citizens. We are talking about the formation of a positive attitude in society to aging, to the image of senior citizens. We, together with the United Nations Population Fund, organized a series of workshops for journalists, ideologues, demographics professionals in order to raise their awareness of how, in principle, aging affects the development of society, how it is necessary to form a positive perception of aging. This series of seminars is taking place all over the country. It will end on October 3 in Minsk. As a finale of these events, we plan to announce a contest among journalists for the best material on the formation of a positive image of the elderly, a reflection of their active life position.













