On June 8-9 a Peer Review Group Assessment meeting took place in Krakow on technical and social innovations. It was an event where stakeholders from ITHACA regions could exchange their solutions related to social support to citizens of all ages, but also to entrepreneurs and employees in the difficult pandemic reality.
Technology and science should always focus on the human aspect like using AI for suicidal risk assessment or building resilience and improving access to therapeutic and psychological support via an internet platform. Also the social innovations showed us once more that the human ‘’touch’’ is so important to make a difference.
The main ‘’take aways’’ of these initiatives :
- Be flexible
- Be open to different opinions
- Make sure to connect all of the community around a child/youngster , the cooperation between all of the involved; like school, parents, friends , sports club etc. is very important, immediate support can be given
- Adapt to the solutions the care is providing. For instance a raise in the salary of the care givers and also a new way of working has developed during Covid-19, find ways to sustain this way of working instead of going back to ‘’the old way’’ of working.
- Think big but start small
During the event there was a lot of discussion on vital issues:
- mental health of children and youngsters,
- challenges in work-life balance in pandemic times,
- solutions supporting independent living of elderly or people with special needs like autism, deafness, limited mobility,
- the long term care nurses’ work during the pandemic, which turned out to be a hot topic in all partner regions.
The discussion throughout these days was very good and aimed at future cooperation between stakeholders like an alarm solution for deaf people or a psychiatric support model for young people.
