Snir association: Supporting the elderly in their golden years

 Nir Shmuel - Snir Association (photo credit: TOMER FEDER)
Nir Shmuel - Snir Association
(photo credit: TOMER FEDER)

Snir has recently established a volunteer initiative and a unique platform for the benefit of the elderly, which includes a dedicated unit for providing social psychological response and services to the elderly among the general public.

The unit will provide an initial and immediate response through the "hotline for the elderly" with the best psychologists, welfare professionals, and internal medicine to support this population. The helpers operate on a voluntary basis and in the long term, in light of the emotional distress that many in Israel are currently undergoing, including the elderly population.

To this end, the organization has established a customer relations hotline, which is the hotline for the elderly that initiates calls to this age group, which is open to conversations and coordinates requests for help for this population and their families who need immediate assistance.

What distinguishes the dedicated hotline and the supportive platform for help and assistance, among other things, is that the unit initiates calls to senior citizens who, due to their precarious mental state, are unable to act independently to locate appropriate immediate assistance. According to her: "This voluntary unit employs psychologists who have enlisted to provide a professional response to the elderly, which includes psychologists who are strategic consultants for developing the activity and adapting it to the needs of the elderly, a senior internist, businessmen, high-tech and technology people, a customer relations team at the designated call center and more.

  (credit: PR)
(credit: PR)

The call center staff responds, builds a profile of the patient and gathers information to identify other needs. The customer relations manager then connects the applicants, as per degree of urgency, with the appropriate psychologists or the internist and they are attentive to their needs and assist them during the telephone sessions.

The organization's dedicated hotline also cooperates with the Emotional and Mental Assistance Unit, which is run voluntarily by former MK Yifat Kariv, which includes psychologists and social workers, and is connected to institutions and welfare bodies in Israel.