The Carrefour des Solidarités, fighting elderly isolation

Strengthening a local network of solidarity to fight against social isolation.

Discover the essential and successful missions of the Carrefour des Solidarités during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Discover the Carrefour des Solidarités in France,

a service of the Maison des Champs Foundation which opened in 2011 in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. Its mission is to help elderly people who are isolated and losing their independence, using a volunteer support model that complements traditional services to meet needs that are not covered, such as administrative support, small-scale DIY, outside assistance, or computer support.

Country

France
Category

Aged care, social
Type of innovation

Organizational

Embark virtually on a journey to the 19th arrondissement of Paris to meet the teams of the Fondation Maison des Champs and, in particular, in the Carrefour des Solidarités, and discover the measures put in place by the association to alleviate the isolation caused by the Covid-19 health crisis.

The Maison des Champs team supported 331 beneficiaries living in the 19th arrondissement of Paris with a very limited budget, thanks to more than 120 volunteers and two paid professionals. Discover the actions carried out and the testimonies of the various stakeholders in our eJourney, which looks in detail at the essential and successful missions of the Carrefour des Solidarités during the Covid-19 pandemic period.

Enroll your team now

Good practice in fighting elderly isolation

This eJourney will help you think outside the box

The Carrefour des Solidarités managed to maintain and develop its support activity for elderly people at home in 2020 despite the periods of lockdown. By being identified as a complementary relay for the services present in the 19th arrondissement, the Carrefour team was also able to be identified as a privileged contact by many institutions that were unable to cope with the lockdown measures and to widen its scope of action to support all the elderly of the 19th arrondissement beyond its usual beneficiaries.

Structuring its reliance on volunteers has enabled it to coordinate a back-up of more than 40 volunteers to meet the exponential needs of the elderly in the neighbourhood, who are even more isolated and underprivileged than in ordinary times. The Carrefour has set up an ad hoc surveillance platform to coordinate one-off or more permanent support actions in order to limit the loss of independence and the deterioration of the general condition of the elderly in the 19th arrondissement.

Meet your expert guides

Director of the Solidarity and Social Action Department at the Fondation Maison des Champs.

Louise Pouget

After obtaining a degree in Art History in 2007, Louise Pouget travelled around Europe and worked for 4 years in London, mostly in tourism. This last experience allowed her to join France Alzheimer in Paris in 2012 as a manager of "Séjours Vacances Répit" for patients and their carers. These stays were exclusively supervised by volunteers. In 2016, with the benefit of this experience with vulnerable elderly people and their carers, as well as training in the recruitment and management of volunteers, she joined the Fondation Maison des Champs as Director of the Solidarity and Social Action Department.

Vice-President of the Fondation Maison des Champs

Sophie Lévy

After a professional career devoted to the training of salaried adults, mainly in a social context, and a constant commitment to associations, Sophie Lévy, upon retirement, became involved as president of the association Les Amis du Carrefour des Solidarités in 2014 and, in parallel, in the Fondation Maison des Champs, of which she became vice-president in 2015. She is in charge of several commissions, including the design of a multi-generational co-housing, another dedicated to helping very precarious beneficiaries, and the Maison des Champs edition.

Manager of the Carrefour des Solidarités

Jonathan El Kaliobi

Employed in the restaurant business, Jonathan El Kaliobi decided to become a caregiver in 2013 following a health problem of his mother, with the challenge of providing care, but also and above all a lot of humanity and humour! He specialised in 2017 to work with people with Alzheimer's disease and joined the Alzheimer's Specialised Team of the Fondation Maison des Champs in 2018. A year and a half later, Jonathan had the opportunity to join the Carrefour des Solidarités team as a manager. With both feet in the social field, he feels like a fish in water because human relations and the establishment of trusting relationships are his hobby!

You will also be guided by some volunteers and interns of the "Carrefour des Solidarités"