Antero Heloma, chair, Provincial State Office of Southern Finland

Birgitta Ellénius, County Council of Västmanland, Sweden

Inger Fälth, County Council of Västmanland

Eero Kalberg, Harju County Government

Tuuli Paaksi, Harju County Government

Kalev Pahla, Harju County Government

Bo Simonsson, County Council of Västmanland

Eva Türk, Harju County Government

Sara Åslund, County Council of Västmanland

Tarja Äijälä, secretary, Provincial State Office of Southern Finland

Gabriela Semrian, City Hall of Timisoara

The chairman, Antero Heloma opened the meeting and welcomed the participants to the meeting. Eero Kalberg, the new head of the social and health department in Harju County Council welcomed the participants to Estonia.

In his introduction to the meeting the chairman mentioned that the Commission has extended the ERDF agreement for SPE until 16^th November 2001.

 

Approval of the agenda for the meeting

The agenda for the meeting was approved.

Approval of the minutes for the 6^th meeting of the Steering Committee

The minutes of the 6^th meeting of Steering Committee were approved.

Västmanland:

263 persons have participated in the fall-injury training in Västmanland. The basic course consisted of 9 hours of training (252 persons). Altogether 11 persons completed an advanced course with additional 20 hours of training.

The pensioners’ organisations training in Fall-injury Preventive Measures will start in February 2001.

The evaluation of hip protectors and loading belts will start and should be completed by March 2001.

In Bergslagen four municipalities are in the end of the hip protector project. Two municipalities of six have had training in fall accident prevention. The length of the training course was three hours.

Kilkis:

One of the doctors from the hospital of Kilkis is going to examine 70 elderly people who are involved in the SPE project.

The municipalities have had discussions on how to improve home care services for the elderly.

A brochure on gerontechnological equipment will be published in English and in Greek.

Two training programmes has been arranged. The training was directed to persons responsible for the 11 municipalities of the Kilkis prefecture. The training courses were about the registration of accidents and social isolation among the elderly. The training seminars for voluntary caretakers and relatives have not started yet.

S. Finland:

In a project called "Hopes and needs of family caretakers" a health care professional has interviewed 29 family caretakers from four different municipalities. The results will be published in a seminar on 16 January 2001. The challenges for the spring 2001 is to develop activities that support the work of family caretakers, and to find ways how to promote spontaneous activities of the family caretakers.

The Lappeenranta Service Centre Foundation is repairing and modernising an old service home. A group of students have started to interview elderly people on their living circumstances.

The memory rehabilitation groups have started. In the year 2000 there have been memory rehabilitation groups in three municipalities. In 2001 two new groups will start in two other municipalities. The goal is to gradually shift the responsibility to the participants of the groups.

The Elimäki institute of Social Welfare has organised short-time courses on home accidents (2 x 4 hours). They have also organised educational happenings in the surrounding villages.

In the year 2001 the institute will organise a home accident-course for the students (32 hours), short term courses for professional home helpers and a St. Valentine's Day happening.

Harju:

The new Head of the Social and Health Department in Harju County Government is Mr Eero Kalberg.

The social isolation study has been done. A total of 500 elderly people were interviewed, a half were women and another half men, by the students of social work section. The people who were interviewed were also 50/50 from rural and urban areas. The results of the study will be sent to Romania.

The Paunküla Care home has donated several technical aid equipments to the Karjaküla Social Centre. The purchase procedure for special vehicle for the elderly has started.

The training of staff from the Karjaküla Social Centre started in March 2000 and ended in December 2000. A total of 12 persons graduated from the course.

The second information seminar will be organised in January 17^th 2001.

The evaluation plan has been prepared.

Two regional steering committee meetings have been carried out.

The interim report has been submitted to the Commission in November 2000. However, the Commission has requested to change the Euro conversion rates used in the interim report. The 2^nd advance of 40 % of the Community assistance will be paid after the correction of the interim report.

The next report to be submitted to the Commission is the six-monhly report. The period for the report is from 1 July to 31 December 2000.

 

 

6 Report and discussion on evaluation

Sara Åslund has received the regional evaluation plans from the partners.

Sara Åslund will send a form of the conclusions of the evaluation to be filled out by the partners in March 2001.

Bo Simonsson presented the preliminary results of the injury registration. A great majority of all accidents are falls. According to the registration women are injured more often than men and most accidents occur outdoors.

Bo Simonsson will ask from the regions a short local analysis of the reasons for the fall accidents.

Planning for the SPE evaluation seminar in Timisoara

The evaluation seminar will be held in Timisoara on 10-13 June 2001. The participants will arrive on the Saturday evening prior to the seminar.

The chairman presented a preliminary draft for the programme of the seminar.

The regional co-ordinators and leaders of the working groups will give presentations in the seminar.

Matters concerning the ERDF and Phare budgets

The Phare countries are making corrections in their Progress Report for the Commission. The reporting period is from 17 November 1999 to 30 September 2000. After evaluation of the report the Commission will send the 2^nd payment of the Community assistance to the Harju County Government.

The Harju County Government will send a request for a budget modification to the Commission.

Discussion on the 1^st Newsletter and Planning for the 2^nd Newsletter

The 1^st Newsletter has been published in English, Swedish and Finnish.

The 2^nd Newsletter with the final report of the project will be published in October 2001. The regions should send their materials for the Newsletter articles by 15^th of May to the project management.

The dissemination becomes an ever more important aspect in the end of the project.

The partners should inform the project management how much money they still have left to be used for the dissemination.

The partners could update a national and international information package to be used in the seminars and conferences.

The Provincial State Office has made a poster of the SPE project in English. Copies will be sent to the partners.

SPE project is to be presented in a Finnish national seminar on Gerontology on 28-29 January in the University of Turku.

Plans for the next three months

Harju:

the special vehicle (minibus) will be bought for the Karjaküla Sosical Centre

a seminar on the prevention of accidents will be organised

the 1^st Newsletter will be edited and published in Estonian

Kilkis:

training of voluntary caretakers will start

a training course for the relatives will be organised

the 1^st Newsletter will be translated into Greek

a brochure on gerontechnological equipment will be published

organisation of the voluntary service of the Kilkis hospital will start

Västmanland:

training for the pensioners’ organisations starts

evaluation of the hip protectors begins

group interviews commence

S. Finland:

planning of the 2^nd Newsletter starts

The chairman presented the proposal for a new AER project "ProHealth", which will be submitted to the Public Health unit of the Commission in the end of January 2001.

Ending the meeting

The chairman closed the meeting and expressed his warmest thanks to Harju County Government for the excellent organising of the steering committee meeting.

 

 

 

                                        Antero Heloma                             Tarja Äijälä

                                        Chairman                                     Secretary

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