Caregivers: more attention needed for self-reliance

Caregivers in district nursing and general practices believe that society should become more aware of the importance of self-reliance and the role of the client, informal caregivers and professionals in this. This is evident from research by Nivel.

Positive towards reablement

The survey, among participants of the national Nivel Panel on Nursing & Care, also shows that nurses and caregivers in district nursing and general practices feel confident about their own actions in stimulating the self-reliance of clients living at home. They are also positive about reablement to stimulate self-reliance.

Important for people

The results of the study do not surprise Jeanny Engels. She is an expert in Self-Reliance and Person-Centered Care at Vilans and an account holder on these topics at Zorg voor Beter (Care for Better). Her tip? 'Encouraging self-reliance means, first and foremost, that you know what is important to people, i.e. what their wishes and needs are, and take the time to do so. Then you start looking: okay, if those are the questions, what does someone want to achieve? So what is needed to start doing? Then you start looking at what someone can teach themselves, because you can also teach people things again.'

Giving confidence

It is also about the attitude of the care provider, Jeanny emphasizes: 'Self-reliance requires that you have respect for the other person and that people are given the space to do things in their own way. In other words, you are in control, also at the pace at which things can be done. It also takes time to give people confidence that they can do things themselves again and then you should not get too far ahead, but above all stay very close to the other person and enter that process step by step. Time is not important but taking your time.'

Being able to do it yourself

Jeany recognizes that it is not easy: 'What can still be a very big challenge is that you've been giving people help for a long time and that that's a certain way of working, so certain patterns have emerged. But if you pay more attention to self-reliance, you may discover that it can be crazy to have been doing something like this for years, right? You then see that someone might be able to do it themselves.'