The Sweet, Sweet Home is actually three houses, three small, intimate facilities located on three consecutive floors of the former school at 4 Municypalna Street. These are places of 24-hour care for people with mental disorders.
A Sweet, Sweet Home is a place where residents will find tailor-made care. We know that too much support can easily turn into overprotection, it can lead to a deterioration in functioning. That is why we plan forms of support that will require residents to take responsibility for their life (or the other being) to an optimal extent. It can be caring for herbs in the garden, adopting a dog or taking up a professional activity.
1. Self-empowerment
It is exceptional on a national scale to plan a return to the community for well-functioning residents. Our Home Sweet Home is actually three facilities with three different profiles: nursing, activating and self-empowering.
2. Work
It is exceptional that we want to employ people with disabilities. We will create workplaces for them on the premises or help them find a job outside the Home Sweet Home.
3. Contact with animals
It is exceptional that we will be accepting people with their own pets. We will not allow the drama of people forced to leave a long-time pet. We will also adopt a dog from a shelter.
4. Healthy lifestyle and exercise
Our meals will be exceptional too: without white sugar, prepared on the premises with fresh, local and unprocessed products. We also plan to grow vegetables and herbs. We will organize slow jogging, yoga and smovies classes.
5. Environmentalism
We want our house to be as environmentally friendly as possible, to have the lowest possible carbon footprint. Hence the photovoltaic panels on the roof, and this is why we are already thinking about an effective waste segregation system according to the zero/less waste movement principles. We want to take care of both our inhabitants and our planet.
- People with mental illnesses (mainly psychoses or mood disorders), with an unfavorable course of mental illness exacerbated by environmental neglect. These are people who are currently staying in social welfare homes, psychiatric care and
treatment facilities, shelters for the homeless, etc. due to the lack of an appropriate support system in the community. A combination of several life factors: poverty, frequent exacerbations of the course of mental illness, lack of proper
treatment, and lack of psychological support, often determines the receipt of a decision to a 24-hour facility. We will prepare a self-empowerment program for them, so that Sweet, Sweet Home will be a transitional stage in life, sometimes
to organize social matters, choose the right treatment, learn the basics of independence. After the end of their stay, they will be able to live, for example, in sheltered flats for mentally ill people run by the TPN.
- People with age-related mental disorders, in particular Alzheimer's disease, for whom care at the place of residence is no longer possible and is a danger to the resident himself or an excessive burden for other family members. They can be lonely people or people who, due to the difficult behavior, can no longer stay in the current family system. We also provide for the possibility of temporary residence of people from this group in Sweet, Sweet Home, for example in the event of a foreign guardian's trip for several months or the need for long-term treatment.
- People with severe mental illnesses who, due to their health condition, require 24/7 support, adequate pharmacotherapy and activating interactions. In particular, they will be people who, apart from mental illness, suffer from other conditions that require specialist care. An example is two long-term patients of TPN who have been suffering from schizophrenia for over 40 years, who have also been treating cancer for several years. The currently existing system of community support, e.g. specialist care services, is far from sufficient in such difficult situations, where it is necessary to transport the patient to long-term chemotherapy sessions, mentally support and help with daily duties. In the event of a satisfactory improvement in health, we will also try to bring these people back to the environment.