Seoul's Seongbuk-gu held a capacity-building education session Thursday for about 100 members of its welfare human safety net — including the Woori Dongne Caregiving Corps and the Goseokgoseok Discovery Corps — who work to prevent lonely deaths and identify residents falling through the cracks of the social welfare system.
The session featured a lecture by Kim Sae-byeol, chief executive of Biohazard, a professional estate-clearance firm, speaking on the theme "Records of What Was Left Behind." Kim drew on cases she had encountered in the field to highlight the importance of neighborly attention and emotional support for socially isolated households. The session also included a voice-phishing crime prevention briefing by the Jongam Police Station and a presentation by Seongbuk-gu's integrated care team on wellness-check protocols and integrated care programs.
The district's welfare human safety net is a resident-led care system in which community members familiar with local conditions check on at-risk households and identify those not reached by existing welfare services. The 52-member Woori Dongne Caregiving Corps conducted a total of 90,087 wellness checks on households at risk of lonely death through July this year, while the 122-member Goseokgoseok Discovery Corps carries out outreach activities focused on residential neighborhoods and rental apartment complexes.
"The careful attention and steady work of the welfare human safety net have been a strong force in identifying socially isolated households and preventing lonely deaths," Seongbuk-gu District Mayor Lee Seung-ro said. "We will continue to build a tighter community welfare safety net so that residents in need can be found in time and connected to the support they require."
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