Art and Social Work: an intervention programme for transforming society’s vision to include people with early-onset dementia and Alzheimer’s

This paper presents a program centred on arts and education as tools in social work for the inclusion of people with earlyonset dementia and Alzheimer’s. The objective of the programme is to eradicate the stigma and myths associated with the disease.The program is part of the Junta de Castilla y León and the European Social Fund’s ARS Project (Arte y Salud Alzheimer; Alzheimer’s Art & Health). The programme presents a series of evaluated artistic and educational activities that can be undertaken by people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and that can also be used by caregivers and family when working with this group of people, with the aim of improving their wellbeing, self-esteem and quality of life.

Good practices in the Enred@te Pilot Project: a digital social network for older adults and Spanish Red Cross volunteers

The Enred@te initiative, created by Red Cross, the Vodafone Foundation and the TECSOS Foundation, emerged as an evolution of a previous project that developed and piloted a video-communication solution with older adults, using a system installed in their own televisions. Following the success of this first initiative, it was decided to advance toward a more flexible, robust, easy-to-use and high-quality solution, producing a social network accessible through tablets. Older adults can use the network to video-communicate with other older adults and stay informed on various topics of interest. Additionally, a new innovation incorporates the participation of virtual volunteers, a part of the network that promotes its use in an inclusive and participative manner. This solution was also piloted in 2014 with positive results and work to turn it into a service that can reach older adults through the Red Cross is currently on-going.