Do you want to “volunteer save time when you are young, and exchange for elderly care services when you are old”? In Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, this idea is being tried out. As one of the first cities in the country to enter the aging population, Nanjing has more than 20% of the elderly over 60. In order to actively respond to the challenge of population aging and solve the problem of insufficient elderly service providers, Nanjing has issued a plan to establish a unified “time bank” for elderly care services at the city level.
As of July 7, 2020, “Time Bank” has covered 12 districts in Nanjing, with 15,309 volunteer applicants, 9,693 service recipients, and a total of 5936 hours of volunteer time. According to the deployment, in September 2020, Nanjing will be promoted throughout the city on a pilot basis.
On February 3, 2020, 64-year-old Chen Minbao was promoted to a four-star volunteer in the “Time Bank” in Dayangou Community, Qinhuai District, Nanjing. “Volunteers are rated according to the length of service, divided into 5 levels. One-star 100 hours, five-star 1500 hours.” Chen Minbao said in an interview that a four-star means that her voluntary elderly care service has reached 1,000. Hours.
In the days of voluntary service, at 8 o’clock in the morning every day, Chen Minbao will show up on time to make an appointment for the elderly to help with cooking; 2 o’clock in the afternoon to 4 o’clock in the afternoon is when she chats with 6 elderly people in the yard; Will rush to help the elderly make an appointment for bathing, washing and cleaning the floor.
”At the beginning, volunteers from the Time Bank came to help me take care of my paralyzed husband and father-in-law.” Chen Minbao said, thankful for this, she also joined the “Time Bank” and participated in mutual assistance for the elderly.
”The so-called’time bank’ refers to the government’s policy design to encourage volunteers to provide elderly care services for the elderly, according to certain rules to record and store the service time, and when the elderly need it, the time can be exchanged for services.” Wu Weihua, Secretary of the Party Committee of Dayangou Community Tell the reporter, “As early as September 2014, we started voluntary time banking service spontaneously.”
As the first pilot unit of Nanjing Time Bank, Dayangou Community has so far recruited 2302 volunteer “depositors”, accumulating time. 50,173 hours, and attracted 80 volunteer service teams from China Design Group, Nanjing Audit College, Qinhuai District Party School, and Fat Fish Head Catering.
According to reports, among these volunteers, the oldest is over 90 years old, and the youngest is still in kindergarten. Among them, the young people between the ages of 50 and 70 account for more than 60%, and they are a veritable main force.
”We advocate’little old people’ to help’old people’.” Wu Weihua said that the number of young people is huge and they have plenty of time and the ability to provide services to other elderly people. If you can make good use of this part of the power, it can not only relieve the government’s financial pressure, but also save old-age services for the future of the young.
The 71-year-old Ruan Jingping was the first batch of participants in the “Time Bank” of Dayangou Community.
Volunteers from the Dayanggou community gave the elderly dumplings on the Dragon Boat Festival. Picture | View Oriental Weekly
Two years ago, there was a sudden power failure at his home. “Time Bank” sent volunteer electricians to investigate the cause and spent 3 hours repairing the circuit failure. Ruan Jingping did not pay a penny, but exchanged it for 3 hours in his accumulated “time bank”.
”The services of’Time Bank’ are called’services that do not cost money’ by residents.” Wu Weihua introduced to reporters that before the launch of the “Time Bank” service, the needs of the elderly mainly depended on two ways to achieve:
One is the purchase market Senior care services on the Internet. For example, it takes about 80 yuan per time to help the elderly take a bath, and about 50 yuan per time to help the elderly go up and down the stairs. A service purchased by government finances, but this service is mainly for the key empty-nested elderly living alone. “Key empty-nest elderly living alone refer to empty-nested elderly people over 80 years old, or disabled and semi-disabled empty-nested elderly people living alone in low-income families between 60 and 79 years old.” In
contrast, “Time Bank” is in ” At the same time, it also covers more service targets-including key empty-nest seniors living alone and seniors over 60 years old who have time-as long as they participate in voluntary service when they are young, they can redeem them when they are old. The corresponding service time.
”However, not everyone can be a volunteer.” Zhou Xinhua, Director of the Elderly Service Division of the Nanjing Civil Affairs Bureau, introduced in an interview. “When volunteers from the Time Bank register, the Civil Affairs Bureau will compare the relevant data with the police. The departmental data is compared in real time to compare the credit status of volunteers, illegal and criminal records, etc., to ensure the safety of the elderly.” In fact, if successfully registered volunteers want to provide elderly care services, they also need to follow standard procedures.
First, the service requires the elderly to submit an order to initiate. This link can be issued by the elderly themselves, or through their immediate family members or clients.
Subsequently, “Time Bank” dispatched the order. The elderly can choose independently, volunteers can take the initiative to take orders, and service points can also send orders manually. In addition, it can also be automatically matched and arranged nearby through the system.
The service of volunteers also has a set pattern.
”One is through the positioning system. After the volunteer arrives at the service point, click to enter the service mode; if the GPS signal is weak, the second mode can be used to scan the face of the reserved elderly person to confirm the arrival at the service point to the system; if the first two are both If it is unsuccessful, there is a third way to open the service by manually uploading the service photos.”
Shi Xiulian, head of the Nanjing Time Bank Management Center, told reporters that when the service is over, the volunteers can click the end option. The big data platform on which “Time Bank” relies has made the service, evaluation and supervision of volunteers more intelligent and convenient. In the early community trials, how to guarantee future cashing services was the most worrying thing for volunteers.
”In order to guarantee the fulfillment of services, Nanjing has set up a special fund called’Time Bank’. The annual financial allocation is 10 million, and the rest is funded by the Charity Federation from the society.” Zhou Xinhua said.
According to reports, this special fund is mainly used to serve the city’s 80-year-old and above empty-nested elderly living alone, disabled and semi-disabled empty-nested elderly living alone in the 60-79-year-old subsistence allowance family, and left-behind elderly in rural areas, and Resolve the operational risks of “Time Bank”. If volunteers need to cancel their bank accounts because they leave the city, the fund can also give a one-time reward at 10% of the previous year’s part-time hourly wage rate.
Another system design worth mentioning is the “public time pool”.
”In the current design, the storage limit for volunteer service time of the Time Bank is 1500 hours, and the excess will be automatically transferred to the public time pool.” Shi Xiulian explained to reporters, entering the service time of the public time pool, It can also be distributed to more elderly people who meet the government’s direct collection time. The service time donated by volunteers to the “Public Time Pool” will be rewarded with corresponding points in the future, which will be used to obtain praise from government public service resources or social forces.
“There is no domestic precedent for the implementation of the “Time Bank” of elderly care services at the city level.” According to Wu Yiming, director of the China Association for Social Work Education and professor of the School of Social Development of Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing’s “Time Bank” is not only for elderly care services and elderly care. The promotion of the cause itself is even more an innovation in social governance.
