A space to make everyday decisions

The simulated home is part of the Rehabilitation Program of the Specialized Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation Service ( SERPI ). For a year now, the multidisciplinary team of the long-stay hospitalization unit has been assessing and selecting cases according to the rehabilitation project and the goals of each person. Two occupational therapists and a social integrator organize and carry out the sessions with the group.

The team of professionals meets weekly to assess the cases and decide who will participate, depending on the stage of the process that each person being treated is in. Occupational therapists establish the objectives to be achieved and carry out the monitoring and evaluation.

Vanessa López is the occupational therapist who today facilitates the initial meeting to plan the day. In these group meetings, the tasks and actions of the day are organized (menus and healthy eating habits, shopping and money management, laundry and cleaning, food preservation, etc.), needs and expectations are identified and aspects of coexistence are discussed, focusing on self-management, individuality and daily decision-making.

During the dynamics that arise each day, the development of certain interventions is prioritized, depending on the needs, motivations and suggestions of the group.

Later, in an individual intervention, Vanessa will accompany and advise the people she has detected as having more difficulties and needing more support.

Eloi is one of the people who is part of this group. He has been admitted to a long-term care center for many years, where lunch is served every day and he does not have to plan or prepare anything. After two months of going to the supermarket with someone, today he goes there alone to buy the ingredients he needs to make lunch at home. During this time he has worked on such important issues as planning the money he has and how he spends it, deciding what he wants to eat and trying to follow a balanced diet. Today he has decided that he will eat pasta salad.

In your case, you have had to learn and train new skills ; in other cases, it will be about recovering these abilities, because some people have not had the opportunity to put them into practice for a long time.

Participating in this space encourages Eloi to make decisions and helps him gain autonomy and confidence in his abilities, but it also opens a door for him to interact in a non-institutionalized dynamic, to coexist and get out of his daily hospital routine, in a friendlier and different space. And this, surely promotes substantial changes in him.

While he boils pasta to make the salad, Óscar prepares his lunch and Antonio takes the opportunity to put on a washing machine: today it's time for the tablecloth and tea towels. They don't always all want to eat at the same time and today they have organized themselves to take turns using the stove according to the preparation time required for their meals and their appetites. Antonio tells the occupational therapist that one day he would like to make a paella together, and the others are happy and receptive to the proposal.

The group's routine within the apartment consists not only of preparing food, but also of doing other household chores , such as washing clothes, and sharing responsibilities such as cleaning and tidying up the common spaces. It is an ideal time to work on the dynamics that arise from living together and explore the relational and functional difficulties that may arise.

Laura González , an occupational therapist who also works in this space, explains that this scenario " allows us to observe skills and potential in a more natural environment, but also to identify difficulties. In this way, we can graduate the support that the person needs to be more autonomous and we can focus on aspects such as planning, executing tasks, achieving routines and responsibilities or interaction and relationships with colleagues, for example."

The home has an equipped kitchen, a living room with a television, a laundry area, a terrace and a room for using the computer and the library.

After collecting everything, some decide to rest and watch TV, others take a nap and, someone has even dared to teach a friend how to play chess. Finding these moments of togetherness is essential for training social skills, but it is also very important to have the option to decide what to do with this leisure and rest time and to also be able to take some time for yourself, as we would do in any home.

Thus, the simulation apartment of the Sant Joan de Déu Health Park allows the people who live there to have a more active role in their recovery process and promotes the acquisition of skills for independent living. Here, feelings of enjoyment and self-confidence are encouraged, as well as the self-discovery of potential and interests. And even, as in the case of Óscar, the discovery of a new role. "I'm a cook ," he says out loud, as they lock the apartment and say goodbye until the next session.