We are a registered charity who provide cradle to grave services in the Dromid and the Iveragh area.

Description

Our mission is to provide services from the youngest person in the community to the eldest. In this context, I will refer only to the senior side of the service. We wish to better the lives of the more senior members of our community, to ensure that we can support and help them to live a happy and healthy life in what is a very rural area. We liaise directly with the local district nurses and have a great rapport with our home-helps.
Our project has 6 houses on site that are there primarily for the more senior members of our community, one of them is for an onsite caretaker. The residents of Bruach na hAoine have all lawns and maintenance done and any other additional requirements that they need in terms of their residences. It is the most beautiful setting with ample parking for those who drive, it is adjacent to the church and the day care centre and laundry. They are all wheelchair accessible and also have all the necessary facilities that one could require for independent living.
Ionad Lae na Dromoda is where we provide many of our services such as meals and entertainment in-house, meals on wheels 4 days a week. A community laundry, chiropody, hair-dressing and other personal care services. We also have an onsite polytunnel for those who wish to participate in our Síol programme encouraging those with an interest to engage in the polytunnel which has an important role in terms of a pastime that they can engage in as they please, it is important for keeping them active and is a wonderful social opportunity also. We are about to engage with the local community incorporating our older people in a bottle return scheme programme whereby they can donate their used bottles in bulk to us and the proceeds from same will go into our social services budget while encouraging recycling also and we will also be engaging in an on-site composting programme.
We also have a community patio where there is a lovely seating area and available BB-Q for those who wish to participate in same. We have a beautiful on-site orchard cultivated many years ago by one of our current residents and every September, the fruit of these tress are picked and used in desserts and lots of jams, compote and others uses for desserts throughout the year, the new poly will provide lots of salad veg and fruits for the residents also and we also have a new bio-diversity garden.
We also have an out-reach programme that our Ionad Lae manager engages in three days a week, where she goes out into the community and visits nominated people who live alone to make sure they have company and human contact one or twice a week dependent on the gravity of the situation. It is an invaluable service to be able to provide to those who may no longer be able to leave home or those who only see people infrequently.
We are very proud of the services that we strive to provide every day and the many links that we have to supportive organisations such as the HSE, the DRCD, local community organisations, South Kerry Development Partnership and Kerry County Council who give us ongoing support, guidance and funding, without them we would not be able to continue what we do on a daily basis.

Aim of Initiative

The aim of the initiative is ensure that we better, enrich and give something to the lives of the more senior members of our community many of whom were involved in this initiative from the outset. It is the idea of seeing after our own people and to ensure that they can live in this community for as long as they wish.

Who is it aimed at

It is aimed at the more senior members of our community or those who suffer from ill health and their carers/families and need the additional support.

3 Steps critical to success

1. The Vision – When this project first came about, it was a greenfield site. We are located 7 miles from our largest town Caherciveen and 6 miles from the village of Waterville. The local community/development committee at the time say that the area was very large geographically and were badly in need of the services that we now have. The irony of it all is that we are the group that provide services to some of the other areas. Ní neart go cur le chéile
2. The Will – This group had the will to see this project through to fruition. It is no small achievement for a community as peripheral as ours to own 6 houses and to be in the position to provide the type of services that we do. They showed great strength of will to push through all the relevant applications at the time to achieve the funding required to obtain all that has been achieved.
3. The Help – Without the help of the external agencies such as Kerry Co Council, the HSE, the body that deals with us as a AHB and gives invaluable support and help we would be or have none of the services that we do. We also have wonderful volunteers in the immediate community both on a board level and to help with the services. It is amazing to see the Meitheal alive and well in South West Kerry.

3 Challenges in Planning / Delivery

1. Funding – This is an ongoing challenge, we are in a position where the cost of everything has elevated on a huge scale in the last few years and funding has remained the same. The charity element of our company insinuates we are trying to keep the cost to our users very reasonable however it places pressure on our budgets.
2. Transport – We are very lucky to be able to link in with Local Link Kerry but we could certainly do with some additional routes to be added in to assist more people to get to our service, again we live in a peripheral area and transport is always an issue.
3. Increased pressure on the service – we live in an area with an ageing population, we would like to think that we can continue on with the demand that we have but would need the recognition from the state services of what we do in terms of funding.

3 Outcomes / Benefits

1. Bettering the quality of life for all of the older members of our community and showing the community as a whole that though it may not be required at this current moment, there is huge comfort in knowing we are there.
2. Care – In a rural area such as ours it is of the utmost importance that people realise that they are cared for and have a support network. We are very proud of this element of our work. People know that we will strive to help them in any way we can.
3. Relief on the main HSE service – There is little doubt in our minds that in developing the type of services that we do, the only option for many would be care as they wouldn’t have the connection/check-in that we offer. They also have the support of meals at a reasonable cost along with laundry and all those personal care supports that otherwise might mean that they would reject. Inevitably this saves on the pressure on the main HSE system.