With the increasing number of EU citizens living with dementia, Alzheimer’s and other types of brain related diseases, the care of these citizens has become a significant and complex challenge within the EU. Due to the nature of the disease and the gradual cognitive decline, dementia is considered a ‘relatives disease’ because of the strain that the course of the disease can be for close relatives. This challenge calls for social innovation in order to offer new and better ways of thinking, acting and living together.
Started in September 2018 and running until the end of 2021, the EDEN project, cofounded by the ERASMUS + Programme, has been conceived to support relatives, health care professionals and local communities, in their collaboration and effort to create better lives for people living with dementia and their relatives.
On March 4th 2021, the EDEN project, with the organizational support of ECHAlliance, has organized its first online workshop to present the EDEN Community Collaboration Concept (CCC), a process tool which introduces how communities can collaborate with relevant stakeholders to work with the challenge of dementia as a community challenge and not as an individual challenge.
An Expert Reference Group, composed by experts in the field of dementia from each participating project’s country and representatives of relevant umbrella organizations at European level, has been engaged and invited to join the workshop to discuss the CCC and to receive feedbacks to improve it.
Attended by almost 30 participants, between project’s partners and relevant experts, the webinar has been structured in a plenary session to present the CCC and in 5 parallel working groups where the participants had the chance to co-create the Concept basing on their knowledge and practical approach.
All the feedbacks received from the lively discussion of the working groups have been summed up at the end of the event by the working groups rapporteurs and will be used by the project’s partner to enhance the Concept to ensure that it will effectively bring real value to the EDEN target groups.
Relevant inputs have been also gained on the longterm objective of the EDEN project: make the EDEN Platform (still under development) and the Community Collaboration Concept sustainable through collaboration with European and National Associations and Networks who would like to promote – or even host – the EDEN platform in the future.
Before the end of the project, additional workshops will be organized involving the EDEN Expert Reference Group to improve the quality of the project’s outputs and, finally, to create the best possible conditions for people living with dementia and their relatives.
