Reciprocal Benefit by Intergenerational Meetings

Plain-language summary

The investigators want to set up an experiment that allows a reciprocal benefit to 2 fragile populations: isolated seniors and disadvantaged children. The main hypothesis is that regular exchanges between these two populations reduce the feeling of social isolation of seniors and improve the school behavior of childrens. Therefore the investigators propose the following study design. The seniors and childrens will meet once a week, for 7 months, in a defined location in the city of Vallauris, over a period of one and a half hours, outside school hours (4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.) and school holidays. During the school holidays the group will meet 3 times for day-long activities in the presence of at least one of the parents and possibly brothers and sisters. At the end of the project, a convivial evening will be organized in the presence of the families. The group will meet in a room in the city center and in the presence of a facilitator so that an adult will never be alone with a child. The formed pair will follow a defined schedule where will alternate activities proposed by the senior, sessions proposed by the facilitator and convivial moments in the presence of families . During the sessions proposed by the senior, he will offered the child a leisure activity that he likes and masters (eg gardening, DIY, sewing, etc.). All the proposed activities will be validated upstream by the project managers. The sessions proposed by the facilitator (e.g. games, walks) could be done with the participation of an outside speaker (e.g. for writing a gazette). A new evaluation session will be offered to all participants at the end of the meeting period, then at the end of the project, 1 month after the end of the meeting period.

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Trial details