Enhanced support for older people with suspected or confirmed risk or substance abuse. Training and collaboration initiative for home care services

We want to investigate how home care employees can act when they meet a user who is judged to have high consumption of alcohol, and potient risk- or addiction. The goal is for the municipalities of Härnösand, Sollefteå, Örnsköldsvik, and Ånge and Mid Sweden University to develop a research-based, effective and guiding working model to provide safe health and social care services by better meeting and managing older people with substance abuse. This is to provide the best support to the municipality's residents and to live up to the proposed new legislative directives (S 2020:08; SOU 2023:5), which applies to regions' and municipalities' handling of substance abuse and addiction problems. 

We develop a training intervention for employees that includes relevant areas of expertise, treatment, ethics, law, areas of responsibility and roles.  The manual includes aspects of how users can be motivated to abstinence, i.e. to reduce their alcohol use, or to become sober and drug-free. The manual also includes examples of how threats and violence can be prevented, e.g. threatening situations during home visits. The manual also includes how the situation of relatives can be noticed and supported.  One expected outcome is that home care employees have access to a practical and usable intervention manual that will facilitate the work with the target group. We also support how the managers best implement of the developed manual.

The generated knowledge is intended to contribute to safer care, better sustainablity and an increased preparedness for home care employees and managers, when it comes to meeting users with harmful use or addiction problems.