Co-designing tools and support for quality of life of people with disabilities and their families in times of Covid-19. A viable space for the disability case manager (DCM)?

The COVID-19 syndemic experience exacerbated the urgency of finding innovative solutions to support the autonomy, integration and care of people with disabilities in our country. Specifically, the fragility of the protection measures for the disabled and their families emerged forcefully, and they were all too often abandoned in residences -and in their own homes- as a result of dedicated service closures, leading to the loss of flexible or adequate alternatives and to an often unsustainable burden of care for families. The article first discusses the experimentation of introducing a disability case manager (DCM) in a local context, starting from an interesting drive for innovation exercised by a banking foundation that promoted a participatory process with public and private stakeholders. The second part explores the salient features of the DCM profile in relation to the needs that emerged from listening to local stakeholders, particularly care workers and disabled people and their families. In the last part, the experimentation is presented as a possible innovative path towards improving the quality of life and well-being of disabled people. Finally, several key recommendations are provided for urgent interventions to support disabled people and their families both during and after the syndemic crisis.