We can learn the most from proven, good practices also in the field of long-term care! We are happy to receive and even happier to share the good practices of different countries. Send us as many as possible!
Let’s look at good examples:
#1
The Italian “MAPPET” project, which was recently completed in the municipalities of Ancona and Falconara Marittima, is a powerful example of community-based care that supports active ageing. It supports independence, and above all places the person at the centre. Led by COOSS Marche and in cooperation with local partners, MAPPET developed an integrated and personalised support model for older adults, which combines social services, healthcare, and community resources — starting from people’s own needs, preferences, and life choices.
How did it work?
The project offered a wide range of activities and services tailored to individual needs, including:
Cognitive screenings and personalised care plans.
Digital tools and tablets for home-based cognitive training and rehabilitation.
Specialist support (psychologists, physiotherapists, nutritionists), also at home.
Creative and community activities such as art therapy, music sessions, and memory training workshops.
Community initiatives to reduce isolation and strengthen social connections.
Support and training for family members and caregivers.
These actions resulted in a 360° care model, where technology, locally available services, and community participation are not ends in themselves, but tools to help people express their needs and actively shape their own care pathways.
Who is it for?
For people aged 65+ and their families, with the aim of preventing cognitive decline, supporting independence, and strengthening their role as active shapers of their own wellbeing.
Why is it a good practice?
Because it brings a shift in perspective: care is no longer something that is “provided” to people, but something that is built around their voice, choices, and self-determination.
MAPPET shows that when people are supported in expressing what they want and need, services become more meaningful, more effective, and more respectful of dignity.
This approach is closely aligned with the goals of FairCare, which supports inclusion, empowerment, and the right of vulnerable people to shape their own care and life paths.
Watch the final project video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKn0LxWhq7M
#2
Best Practice from Germany: Neighbourhood Assistance
In Germany people with a care level who receive care in their own home have the opportunity to use a certain amount (up to €131 per month) for everyday support services. This can be support from neighbourhood helpers, for example. The support services include accompanying individuals to medical appointments, public authorities, and walks. Assistance is also provided with shopping, household tasks, and outdoor domestic work such as gardening. In addition, support may involve helping with communication, for example by reading aloud or assisting with filling out forms. The services further include encouragement and support in leisure activities and maintaining social contacts, carrying out light physical exercises such as gymnastics, and memory training to support the management of everyday social activities. The helpers receive a so-called expense allowance of a maximum of 10 euros per hour.
Neighbourhood assistance supports people in need of care and their relatives with low-threshold everyday tasks. It provides support for caregivers while at the same time enabling people in need of care to organise their daily lives more self-determinedly (this applies in particular to people without family support).
In addition, the service may help people remain in their own homes for longer and avoid having to move into a nursing home.
3#
A great example from Hungary: P-AGE Conscious Ageing Programme
The P-AGE Community Intergenerational and Age-Friendly project operates in Hungary/Pécs through the collaboration of the Pécs Community Foundation and the Hekate Conscious Ageing Foundation, with broad social involvement.
The long-term goal of the P-AGE Conscious Ageing Programme is to create a local community model for conscious ageing and to build a Hungarian conscious ageing network connected to the European system.
For the first time in human history, 4–5 generations are simultaneously active participants in society. The demographic transformation of the past 50–70 years — which continues today and will persist in the future — brings countless new opportunities, but also many new challenges. Never before have so many people over the age of 75 lived in Europe, while — partly due to digital transformation — the worlds of older and younger generations have perhaps never been so different as they are today.
At the same time, our society must find solutions to major challenges such as housing issues, demographic changes, the parallel care crisis, and the climate crisis. Addressing these complex challenges requires the knowledge, experience, and creativity of all generations — which in turn requires cooperation between them.
Although we can certainly find examples of spontaneous intergenerational cooperation in our own environment, community- and society-level collaboration between generations rarely emerges on its own. Such cooperation requires that members of different generations mutually see, hear, and understand one another. It is essential to have shared causes, activities, and spaces where mutual acquaintance, understanding, and collaboration can develop.
Strengthening and supporting this kind of intergenerational social cohesion is the main goal of the P-AGE Community Intergenerational and Age-Friendly Platform project.
Within the two-year project, joint work will result in the creation of an intergenerational toolkit with an age-friendly focus, based on international experiences. The toolkit will include a cooperation-supporting methodology, various practices, and an educational and awareness-raising board game that can be widely used in communities.
Members of the P-AGE Interdisciplinary Expert Community (from civil society, healthcare, higher education, research, culture, local government, architecture, and equality fields, among others) will also participate over the two years in a 10-session Conscious Ageing training programme focused on community but based on personal experience.
P-AGE organises regular clubs for older people who wish to consciously shape this stage of their lives. Among the forward-looking shared ideas and plans that emerge, one of the most outstanding is to implement an intergenerational housing model in Pécs between young people and older adults — addressing two major issues at once: loneliness among older people and housing difficulties faced by young people.
Read more about this great initiative here, in English and Hungarian:
https://pecsikozossegialapitvany.hu/oregedes/
https://tudatosoregedes.org/rolunk/