Call for Experts on Personal Assistants
The Independent Living Institute, ILI in Sweden and BOL, Budgethoudervereniging Onafhankelijk Leven, in Belgium are funding the construction of a database in which they plan to register experts in the field of personal assistance.
ECEPA, European Center for Excellence in Personal Assistance, was an EU funded project run by eight European Centers for Independent Living. One of the results of the project is the ECEPA document "Model National Personal Assistance Policy" at http://www.independentliving.org/docs6/ratzka200410a.pdf.
Today we still face a tremendous need for policy changes towards de-institutionalization and community based services by means of cash payments for personal assistance no matter which country we live in. Thus some of the participants in the original ECEPA project want to revive it and work towards securing funding for its continuation.
As a first step in this direction, the Independent Living Institute, ILI in Sweden and BOL, Budgethoudervereniging Onafhankelijk Leven, in Belgium are funding the construction of a database in which they plan to register experts in the field of personal assistance. The purpose of this effort is to have a list of people ready which will be able to collaborate in preparing proposals for European Union grants as well as for other cooperation.
Below is a brief questionnaire sent to persons in different European countries, asking them to suggest persons whom they consider to be experts in some aspect of personal assistance. These experts can be users of personal assistance or family members, service providers, civil servants, politicians, researchers or instructors regardless of which country they live or work in. The aim is to set up a comprehensive and Europe-wide network of persons who are concerned with personal assistance.
Please support this initiative by completing the questionnaire as best as you can. For further questions, please do not hesitate to contact:
Adolf Ratzka, Independent Living Institute, [email protected]
Corina Zolle, ForseA, [email protected]
Hubert Bernard, ZSL Bad Kreuznach, [email protected]