Professionals from the institution highlight the importance of adapting resources to the specific demands of each process in order to promote maximum autonomy.
Fostering the autonomy of the elderly with responses adapted to the new realities and thus promoting their empowerment and a dignified and egalitarian ageing are the main demands of the articles that professionals from different areas of the Institut Mallorquí d’Afers Socials (IMAS) of the Consell de Mallorca have published in the Anuari de l’envelliment. Illes Balears 2024.
Once again this year, the Yearbook has been published by the Chair of Care for Dependency and Promotion of Personal Autonomy of the University of the Balearic Islands, the IMAS and the Department of Family and Social Affairs of the Government of the Balearic Islands. The director of Community Care and Promotion of Personal Autonomy of the IMAS, Catalina Maria Mascaró, recognised during the presentation of the publication its value ‘as a tool to show the social changes of the elderly. The Yearbook offers us a vision of ageing from different perspectives and helps us to offer quality social services adapted to the particular needs of each person’.
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The empowerment of older people is the focus of the articles published by IMAS in the Yearbook on Ageing. Balearic Islands 2024
The Conseller de Benestar Social del Consell de Mallorca and president of IMAS, Guillermo Sánchez, signs the presentation of this Yearbook, which has different articles by professionals of the Mallorcan institution that, precisely, note how each person faces old age with different perspectives and concerns. For this reason, the island’s director stressed, ‘it is important to listen to the voice of the elderly and respect the way in which each person has decided to grow old, from the care they wish to receive to the tasks of prevention. Talking about ageing means talking about the need to promote autonomy, adapt resources and promote initiatives so that they can maintain healthy habits, integrated into the community and in accordance with their life plan’.
“Grandparents who care. A reality within the child and family protection system ‘ states that older people have gone from being a support for reconciling work and family life to being the reference point for grandchildren, and that they are now responsible for 64% of family foster care; ’Life stories: trajectory of drug use and rehabilitation in people over 55 ‘ exposes different cases of addictions during ageing. These are two of the articles in which IMAS professionals highlight the social change that has taken place and the importance of providing specific responses to each ageing process.
Specifically, in the first article, the authors make a special mention of ‘the specific emotional needs of these older people who experience unwanted parenthood at an age when they expected to have no more obligations’. In the second article, the IMAS Addictive Behaviour Unit reaffirms the need to establish specific treatment itineraries for older people who have, or have had, addictive behaviour.
For its part, the article “Sexuality and women. An experience with women and for women in the IMAS centres for the promotion of autonomy ‘ reinforces the importance of empowerment with the presentation of the ’ORG” programme, a pioneering project in which 70 women between 55 and 90 years of age from the centres for the promotion of autonomy of the elderly of the Mallorcan institution have participated, with the aim of breaking taboos, combating and demystifying the hypothesis that relates older women with sexuality and offering resources on sexual education and health focused on this group.
Autonomy, dignity and equality are other aspects claimed by IMAS to guarantee quality ageing. This is reflected in the article ‘Diagnosis and intervention on ageism in Mallorca’, which highlights the importance of promoting non-discrimination actions and fighting against stereotypes, in a year marked precisely by the 30th birthday of the Section for the Promotion of Autonomy of IMAS.
L’Anuari de l’envelliment. Illes Balears 2024, which this year has reached its seventeenth edition, has become a benchmark for understanding the situation of the elderly in the archipelago from all areas. In addition to IMAS and the Department of Families and Social Affairs of the Government of the Balearic Islands, the Chair of Care for Dependency and Promotion of Autonomy of the UIB has also had the collaboration of the Guillem Cifre de Colonya Foundation of the Caixa de Ahorros de Pollença and the Balearic Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology.