The European dialogue on the new challenges of care is returning to Friuli Venezia Giulia. On 28 October, the sixth Regional Stakeholder Meeting of the CAPABLE project was held online, organised by the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lead Partner of the project, with operational support from INFORMEST. The meeting involved nine participants and focused on sharing the outcomes of CAPABLE’s third Exchange of Experience, held in Vaslui, Romania, from 20 to 22 October.

The discussion brought together regional representatives and stakeholders from the care and domestic work sector, including ASSINDATCOLF, DOMINA and CISL, continuing the dialogue with local actors developed during the previous phases of the project.

The meeting focused on the costs of care for public administrations and families and on the different care models for older people. Stakeholders analysed and compared the experiences presented by Romania, Germany and Friuli Venezia Giulia, assessing their relevance to the needs of the regional territory.

From European dialogue to solutions for the region

One of the main topics concerned the sustainability of home care. Under the Italian model, families directly employ family carers, therefore bearing a significant share of care costs. The discussion also addressed undeclared domestic work and possible measures to make regular employment in the sector more sustainable.

The European experiences shared through CAPABLE helped broaden the discussion. The model observed in Vaslui provided insights into home and long-term care services, co-housing, community-based approaches and active ageing. The experience of Offenbach County in Germany offered an opportunity to explore a system combining long-term care insurance, public support, professional and informal care, and private contributions.

The comparison between different systems highlighted common challenges, ranging from growing demand for care and the availability of qualified staff to the need to identify solutions capable of combining quality of services, economic sustainability and the ability to meet the needs of older people and their families.

Co-housing, telemedicine and integrated care

The Stakeholder Meeting also provided an opportunity to look ahead to the project’s next steps. Areas identified for further exploration include co-housing and innovative housing solutions, telemedicine and integrated care models, with the aim of exploring new ways to meet the needs of older people and, wherever possible, enable them to remain in their own homes and communities.

Particular attention was devoted to the experiences that Friuli Venezia Giulia will be able to contribute to the next stage of the interregional exchange. Stakeholders identified Vesta, the Regional Emergency Response System, and co-housing and innovative housing experiences as practices to be further explored in preparation for the next Exchange of Experience in Spain.

INFORMEST, which provides operational support to the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia in its role as Lead Partner of CAPABLE, will assist the Region and stakeholders in the subsequent activities and in preparing the regional experiences to be shared with the European partnership. In the project materials, INFORMEST’s role is defined as operational support to the Lead Partner, the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

The work launched during the Stakeholder Meeting will therefore continue over the coming months, with the aim of turning the exchange between European experiences and regional expertise into useful input for the development of regional care policies, while also bringing the experiences developed in Friuli Venezia Giulia into CAPABLE’s interregional learning process.