A meeting of the AFE-INNOVNET's project partners was held from 1 to 3 October 2014 in Brussels which was also attended by a colleague of the Department of Health and Social Security at the City of Ljubljana and the Director of the Ljubljana Home Care Institute.

The City of Ljubljana participates in the framework of the Department of Health and Social Security through the AFE-INNOVNET Thematic Network in the field of innovation for age-friendly environments, which is co-financed by the EU. The project partners meet at the Consortium meetings and workshops where individual cities and regions present activities carried out for the elderly. Therefore, at the first Consortium meeting in Brussels, which took place in May this year, we presented the activities and programmes for the elderly that are offered and supported by the City of Ljubljana (day centres, various programmes of non-government organisations for the elderly, etc.) which may serve as an example of good practice for other partner cities and regions.

At the Consortium meeting of partners in the Thematic Network, which took place the first two days, were presented the current activities of the project, whose main objective is the integration of local and regional authorities and other stakeholders (the industry, research centres, universities, non-government organisations) in the creation of age-friendly environments in Europe. Currently, the Thematic Network includes 133 members (of which 22 cities and 17 regions).

The meeting continued with a workshop on the topic of dementia, which was especially topical for the City of Ljubljana, since we will establish a centre for dementia in Ljubljana, which will include day care for people with dementia, support for family members and loved ones, professional training on dementia, etc. In the framework of the workshop we visited a home for people with dementia in Aalbeke and got a lot of good ideas for our future work.

For more information on the AFE-INNOVNET Thematic Network see their website.

Department of Health and Social Security at the City of Ljubljana