On January 12th and 13th, 2016, SURT and its five partner organizations met in Barcelona for the Alternative Future Kick-Off Meeting.
The meeting began with presentations from each organisation to introduce and discuss individual backgrounds and objectives. While each of the participating organisations deals with similar matters, their geographical locations and sociocultural contexts vary to some degree, allowing for a wide spectrum of expertise. This diverse range of backgrounds will help to expand the project´s evaluation of the social, mental, psychological, and political factors that commonly affect vulnerable sectors of the population.
The primary themes discussed at the Kick-Off event were in regards to the Residential Care Facilities (RCFs) where the project would be carried out. In terms of RCFs, the meeting made it clear that every participating organisation and their affiliated country had varying uses for such facilities. With this in mind, the meeting went on to address the execution of the project in a manner that maintained consistency and acknowledged any relevant differentiating factors.
The meeting went on and the partnership started working on the methodological framework of the Needs Assessment phase. After a whole afternoon discussion, the partners agreed on the first draft of the methodological tools to be used. After the meeting, the leaders of the Needs Assessment workstream will continue working on them. Once ready, the partners will translate and adapt them to their context reality.
The second day of the meeting was dedicated to discuss financial and management issues. During the second day the partnership also discussed on evaluation and dissemination activities. For the dissemination part, the partnership agreed on the logo of the project, the structure of the website and started discussion the communication strategy of the project.
The general evaluation of the project meeting was really positive. The partners ensured that the meeting had been useful, fruitful and productive. The partnership showed motivation and enthusiasm to start working on Alternative Future project.
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