On Monday the 21st of November, Diagrama Foundation and Action with Communities in Rural Kent welcomed its European partners to the kick-off meeting for the “Project ICE – Into Caring Europe” at Rural Kent’s head office in East Brabourne, UK. The partners include Group Ubuntu, a non-profit organisation recognised and funded by the Flemish Government and active in the domain of mental, and physically disabled people as well as elderly clients, and Fundación Diagrama, a large Spanish non-profit organisation that offers support to a diverse range of client groups in need, including the elderly. Present at the meeting were also several UK colleagues from groups that work directly with older people and people with disabilities.

The meeting served to review the project’s aim, which is to improve the quality of domiciliary community care by learning from each other what qualifications exist in every partner country. A new course will be developed specifically to raise the standard of domiciliary care available and raise awareness of the needs of clients. In order to achieve this goal, client learners will be involved in the development of this new course, contributing their knowledge and highlighting needs that are not currently met by existing provision.

The partners hope to get close to the needs of the beneficiaries by working with professionals whose job it is to find domiciliary care solutions for the specific client groups on which this project is focused on.