On Wednesday, 9 November 2016, the closing conference of the Active and Quality Aging in Home Environment project was held at the City Hall.

The conference started with introductory addresses by Mayor Zoran Janković, Mojca Kirsch, Head of the Financial Mechanism Office at the Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy of the Republic of Slovenia, and Liljana Batič, Director of the Home Care Institute Ljubljana.
In the first part of the conference the project partners each presented their role in the project, the services the project offers and results of the project. The long-term conceptual basis of the project is to change the professional practice and the approach to comprehensive home care with a strong emphasis on bringing together different professions, above all healthcare and social services.
In the second part of the conference a round table followed with the aim of finding systematic solutions and possibilities for the implementation of project services in the everyday work with the elderly. In addition to project partners a representative of the Ministry of Health and a representative of the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities took part in the round table. The participants each presented their point of view on the discussed topic, and as key points in systematic management of the topic they emphasised the great need for interdisciplinary teams, the issue of empowerment of the elderly and in connection to this the need for individual treatment, but it is also important to identify all suppliers and operators, to forge links between them and build upon them. They also underscored the importance of prevention which can significantly decrease the need for certain services.
The A-Qu-A project, which has started in April 2015 and is concluding at the end of December 2016, is financed by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. Within the scope of the project the residents of Ljubljana over the age of 65 can use certain home assistance services free-of-charge: physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, nutritional counselling, health care and measurements of physical and mental fitness, mobility exercise programmes and adaptations of the home environment to the needs of the elderly. The head of the programme is the Home Care Institute Ljubljana and its partners are the City of Ljubljana, Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Ljubljana, Science and Research Centre at the University of Primorska, Ljubljana City Pensioners’ Association, Faculty of Design at the University of Primorska and Faculty of Health Sciences at the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences.