“How would you like it if there was a stranger at your bedside in the morning?”

André, a man in his fifties with short gray hair, is sitting in his usual place on the corner sofa in a residential group of care institution Het Hietveld. “Nice corner, isn’t it,” he says, “actually the best place on the whole couch. It has collapsed in that place, especially there.” He wobbles. “It’s still pretty sturdy.”

André is slightly mentally disabled. He sits in the kitchen diner, which adjoins the rooms of him and seven roommates, all men. There is a weekly menu and a ‘dislikes list’ on the fridge, listing unwanted vegetables for each resident. André and his roommates stare at television chef Miljuschka Witzenhausen, who stirs a bowl with a spatula. “Life can be that simple,” she says, “a little milk, eggs and you have a fantastic dessert.”

The men themselves do not cook. That is what the supervisors do, including Roy van Bussel (30). For a job like his, there is an urgent vacancy that is not being filled. In fact, the umbrella care organization Pluryn, with care for the disabled and youth care residential groups, is currently short of about 300 counselors. There are 450 positions open in an organization of just under seven thousand people.

Because of all these vacancies, the team at Het Hietveld does not only consist of permanent staff, but also of freelancers. It is an annoyance for André: „Those temporary workers, they know nothing, they do nothing, they just sit passively on the couch. That’s not good at all really, one after the other coming in. It is just like a home care organization, there you also have a different one every day. It is restless, especially for the others, who are completely [hij wuift met zijn hand] all have psychiatric problems.”

His supervisor Van Bussel nuances this. “We are very happy that they are helping us and they are just well-trained staff. But sometimes they don’t know the group, which is difficult. Then I’m constantly working with the clients and conducting: ‘I don’t think this client is feeling well, offer him a moment of rest in his room. Have a cup of coffee with him.’”

The men from this residential group, in the woods below Apeldoorn, are quickly questioned in ‘normal’ society. They may react unexpectedly, for example become disproportionately angry when someone crawls in front of the supermarket. Some have behavioral problems. The doors are locked for a number of residents, but André, for example, needs relatively little adjustment and can go outside unaccompanied.

The atmosphere in the group is usually pleasant. They ‘sjeu de boulen’, go for a walk or get an ice cream in the village. The counselors help the men when they receive complicated mail, or they organize a visit to the hospital if necessary. Soon they will go on their annual vacation to Drenthe together.

“The best thing is”, says André during a game of Jenga with Van Bussel, “we get the bedrooms and the supervisors have to sleep in the living room. Then you get something like”, he sings, “you sleep on the couch tonight, skate.”

‘Watch out’, says Van Bussel, ‘I’m going to lie in front of you. Then you can’t go to the toilet all night.”

The atmosphere can also be different. The guidance in this group must be able to deal with the fact that a coffee cup flies through the room, or that a resident loses his self-control and flies into someone. But that is only such a small part of the profession, says Van Bussel. A personal supervisor must have a completely different, much more subtle quality: keen observation. Van Bussel recognizes signals that mean nothing to others. “If a resident is chewing his finger on the couch and says that nothing is wrong, it is a sign of tension for me. Especially if we know that something is going on, in the family for example. Then we insert an extra moment of rest in their room, or we take them aside to ask how they are doing. These guys seem unpredictable, but that’s just visually.”

In this way nine times out of ten they prevent things from going off the rails, says Van Bussel. “That’s why it’s so important that someone knows the group.”

minions

Resident M., who would rather not have his name in the newspaper, would like to show his room. He is in his fifties, bald, with a lilac shirt and gold necklace. Dozens of photos, printed in A4 format, hang above his bed. They are mainly photos of family members, but there are also some photos of celebrities and supervisors of the group. Furthermore, M. has a collection of dozens of Minion dolls, yellow animation figures.

“Minions yes. I think they’re funny,” he explains. “I just think they’re funny.” He got most of the dolls as gifts. “I don’t even have to ask. I get a lot of stuff, I don’t know why. I lack nothing.”

How long has he lived here? “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t like that.”

M. is also not a fan of temporary workers. “Rather not. We often have trouble dealing with new people. They ask us too much. They don’t know the way, so we have to help them. He has to help us, but then we have to help him. And we don’t like that very much. We prefer to do our own thing, so to speak. Not helping other people.”

It’s nice to know exactly what a colleague has in store for me

Roy van Bussel accompanist

“They see perhaps a hundred people on an annual basis,” says Van Bussel. “We really try to prevent it, but sometimes a freelancer has to wake them up in the morning or give them medication. How many times have you had a stranger at your bedside in the morning? That is of course very intrusive. There are times when I notice they are bothered by it. That is very sad.”

Wim Mulder, Pluryn’s press officer, says that the organization increasingly has to hire freelancers. “We prefer not to do that: changing faces cause unrest.” One of the locations had so much trouble getting the schedule completed this summer that an extra appeal was made to family to supervise activities. And office workers helped prepare meals.

The recruitment department has expanded considerably in recent years, says Mulder. “We try to be creative. We have employee films and experience stories on the website. Recently, a promotion team joined the Nijmegen Four Days Marches to hand out flyers.”

The best, Mulder says, is to recruit as early as possible. “Already in the MBO courses, where Pluryn pays training costs when students do their internship with us. And we help pay if graduates with an MBO-3 education want to retrain for care for the disabled. That project is going quite well.”

Still, Mulder thinks, Pluryn must take into account that it has to rely even more on temporary workers. Van Bussel finds it painful. “I give the residents something else. The regulars here are a surrogate family for them.”

It is also more difficult for him to work. “It’s nice to know exactly what a colleague has in store for me. Especially if I have to give a difficult message, for example. Such as that a resident is no longer allowed to go outside for a while.” He then signals his colleagues in advance, so that someone is always quick to help in the event of an emergency.

“It is almost always possible to recognize signals in time,” says Van Bussel, and then a day actually goes by itself. “Then it doesn’t feel like work, but it’s just a very cozy man’s house. If you invest in these people, you get just as much warmth in return.”

Van Bussel loves these men. “That cannot be prevented.”