DC LINNÉSTADEN
www.linnestaden.goteborg.se
Renovation work began on the Annedalshus home for the elderly in 2002, which will be reopened in autumn 2003. There are commitments to the elderly in other areas too, including the provision of assistance with reading by the home help service. The health of young people is a priority issue and growing drug abuse among young people is being tackled with preventive measures.
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| The first figure is for the district and the second for Göteborg in total during 2002, unless otherwise stated. | ||
| No. of inhabitants | 30,919 | (474,877) |
| Percentage of children 0–15 | 13.0 | (17.3) |
| Percentage of pensioners over 65 | 11.6 | (14.7) |
| Average income, KSEK (over 16) 2000 | 188.9 | (174.6) |
| Percentage of job applicants 18–64 | 4.0 | (4.1) |
| Percentage of people with higher education (20–64) 2001 | 56.4 | (38.9) |
| Percentage of gainfully employed (20–64) 2000 | 73.0 | (69.5) |
| Percentage on social security benefits | 4.7 | (9.5) |
| Social security benefits paid, SEK per inhabitant* | 1,060 | (2,128) |
| * Excl. introduction remuneration. | ||
The pre-schools and schools in Linnéstaden are organised to provide an integrated service in which head teachers of pre-schools and compulsory schools in a given geographical area work in teams. This structure forms the foundation for a coherent approach from age 1 to 16 that will apply throughout the education service, in accordance with Linnéstaden’s plan for children and young people. In Linnéstaden around 80 per cent of all children in the age group 1 to 5 attend pre-school. Taking a long-term perspective of the time children spend in pre-school and compulsory school, right from the outset, is therefore a strategy that gives them a good start on the road to lifelong learning. The plan for children and young people was drawn up by the district committee in consultation with teaching staff, parents and pupils, and was adopted in 2002. It now provides a local governing document for services to refer to alongside the City of Göteborg’s school plan and the national teaching plans.
The survey of recreational habits that was carried out in autumn 2002 shows that young people in Linnéstaden have a significantly more positive attitude towards alcohol than in Göteborg as a whole. The rise in drug problems in the district, particularly among the young, is reflected in reports by staff in individual & family care of increased demand for support. Drug prevention work was extended in 2002 through measures such as strengthening what is known as the resource team. The team now includes special teachers, a school nurse, school welfare officer and psychologist, who work together to develop an overall approach for children and young people aged between 1 and 16.
In care of the disabled, older people with learning disabilities have been highlighted as a group having special needs. A new supported accommodation unit was opened in 2002 that is specially adapted for these people.
In 2002 renovation work began at Annedalshus, a home for the elderly that is almost 30 years old and had become outmoded and difficult to work in. It was known as a service building and the elderly people who lived there looked after themselves to a large extent. Today, the home help service provides the assistance that relatively fit and mobile residents need in their own homes, while those who move into apartments in a home for the elderly require considerably more assistance from staff. Autumn 2003 will see the opening of the new Annedal home for the elderly, which is tailored for today’s needs, with larger bathrooms that are easier to work in, for example.
Preventive work also plays an important part in care of the elderly. Linnéstaden’s care of the elderly service has its own arts and recreation unit that works very closely with homes for the elderly and the open home help service. There is also close cooperation with a number of voluntary organizations. Encouraging residents to read for enjoyment is one example of a project run by the home help service in collaboration with the library in Linnéstaden. Home help staff have learned how to familiarise themselves with the reading interests of elderly residents. Those who may have given up reading due to poor eyesight are given assistance to start again, for example with the aid of audio books that the staff bring along when they make their regular visits.
The library in Linnéstaden has the longest opening hours of any district library, opening for 50 hours in a normal week. The library is also open in the summer holidays. The number of visitors and the number of loans have grown steadily, and there are good opportunities for visitors to have a say in the publications bought by the library. Automatic lending equipment has been installed to improve the service for lenders and reduce pressure on staff.
The EU has designated 2003 as European Year of People with Disabilities, and Linnéstaden is marking this by investing in sophisticated media technology for the visually impaired, among others. During the first half of the year staff will receiving training so that they can act as guides when the reading and writing workshop opens in autumn 2003. This will be a big asset for people with disabilities, who will have free use of various technical aids for searching the Internet, etc.
All the district committees are assigned a number of resource committee duties, which entails responsibility for a service that is provided for all the residents of Göteborg, not just residents of the individual district. The duties of Linnéstaden include responsibility for the City’s crisis and on-call services. Services that have been provided for some time are Family Counselling, Respons alcohol counselling, the Crisis Centre for women, the Crisis Centre for men, the on-call social services office, and Pappis. In autumn 2002 a new service was set up, the Support Centre for single parents, which meets a long-awaited need among many parents who have separated from partners. Initiatives may be both preventive and urgent in nature, and consist of telephone counselling or providing crisis support on location.
Pappis, one of the other crisis and on-call services, is aimed at a closely related target group – fathers and children who live apart. Regardless of whether contact is sporadic, non-existent or even if they have never met before, those who turn to Pappis are given a chance to begin spending worthwhile time together. Pappis has received national funding in order to help set up a similar scheme in other Swedish municipalities. This work began at a conference in autumn 2002, during which several interested municipalities took part and began establishing a network.
The District Committee of Linnéstaden is continuing to extend democracy. Dialogue meetings, at which the committee invites the public to unconditional discussions on living conditions, planning and services, were held in each of the geographical areas of Linnéstaden in 2001 and 2002. These meetings will be repeated and extended in 2003, since their open format and the presence of representatives from various administrations and organizations were fruitful. Citizens have been able to submit suggestions to the District Committee of Linnéstaden since 2002, and from the start of 2003 all documents used in the district committee’s meetings will be available on Linnéstaden’s website. All in all there are excellent opportunities for residents of Linnéstaden to conduct debate with the committee’s politicians.