• Information and material assistance remain the main reasons for calling the Elderly Helpline the Elderly Helpline project.
• Most callers to the helpline live alone and are over 70 years old.

Elderly Helpline, a free and confidential social service dedicated to seniors in Romania , recorded 7,549 phone calls in the first six months of the year. Between January and June 2021, 1,331 seniors found answers to their questions and solutions to the problems they faced, receiving useful information, emotional or material support, or psychological counseling from the specialized team made up of social workers and psychologists.

At the top of seniors’ needs remains the need for practical information, expressed by 464 callers. Difficulty adapting to new communication technologies, lack of access to them, or social isolation leads to limited access for the elderly to much-needed information such as available social services in the community, useful contacts, medical information, etc. Through Elderly Helpline, a specialized team of social workers provides targeted, practical, and up-to-date information from a database that includes over 400 public and private social institutions and service providers.

During the reporting period, 385 seniors living in difficult conditions, even at the poverty line, requested financial and material support through the helpline. Some of these requests were resolved together with partners and sponsors by providing social vouchers, food, hygiene products, and other essentials. Most cases nationwide were redirected to social programs and initiatives run by foundations and public institutions in local communities.

For 274 elderly people, the need for home care and practical support was the main reason for calling the helpline. Being of advanced age or in poor health, seniors or their family members requested and received information from the Elderly Helpline team about specialized medical assistance, personal care or household help, specialized supervision, as well as information about residential care homes for the elderly and the institutionalization procedure.

In the first half of the year, 77 seniors benefited from psychological counseling and emotional support offered free of charge by volunteers and psychologists within the project. Through the weekly call-back service, elderly people who live alone find someone to talk to, share their fears, concerns, and problems. These phone conversations help them manage and overcome anxiety or depressive states caused largely by loneliness.

To address loneliness, Elderly Helpline also offers other solutions: referring the elderly to day centers or associations that provide home visits, involving them in clubs or tele-clubs where they can interact and socialize, and, last but not least, engaging them in volunteer activities. Programs such as the Generations Centers or Senior Clubs, which operate online or through in-person participation following the easing of restrictions, offer solutions for the elderly who express the need to remain active and socially engaged.

Elderly Helpline is the only free and confidential national telephone line dedicated to older persons in Romania. Calls can be made to 0800 460 001. From Monday to Friday, between 08:00–20:00, and on Saturdays between 08:00–16:00, a team of specialists responds with care to those in need and offers solutions to the problems they face.

The Elderly Helpline project is funded by S.C. Johnson Wax Romania and the Adobe Foundation.

Elderly Helpline Infographic, January–June 2021