[Trained stroke helpers : Voluntary care model in outpatient stroke aftercare]

The rehabilitation of people after suffering a stroke is a long-term process, in which patients, their families and friends are reliant on social support and assistance. Therefore, the individual promotion of available resources and autonomy of those affected represents an important task. The College for Health in Bochum and the German Stroke Help Foundation have developed the volunteer-supported model "Trained stroke helpers-a partnership-based model for local care (GeSa)" that educates stroke helpers as experts for individual local support of stroke patients and their relatives. The stroke helpers offer a patient-oriented care and individual assistance in the daily routine and therefore make a contribution to improvement of the health-related quality of life of those affected and their relatives. A training curriculum was developed and successfully tested and evaluated in a course with 21 stroke helpers. Up to summer 2020 a total of 480 stroke helpers have been trained at 16 locations in 37 courses. The experiences with the project have so far been consistently positive, which was confirmed by two scientific studies. The inclusion of cooperation partners for the coordination of the volunteers, which was already implemented in the model project, has been shown to be the most important success factor for the sustainability of the project. This article presents the results of the pilot study and the standardized process on implementation of a regional stroke helper project and describes the experiences with the previous course of the project.