This project was designed and developed in order to promote the increase of skills of the Institute's employees who work with people with mental illness and/or intellectual disability in the process of rehabilitation and their family members/caregivers, in order to drive the improvement and innovation of services, based on benchlearning processes at European level, and thus achieve better results and effects of the intervention, with a direct impact on improving the quality of life of these people and communities. It is also expected, with this project, to enhance the collaborations at European level of organizations that intervene in the field of mental health and that the implementation of innovation projects in centers in Portugal can also boost the improvement and innovation in other national organizations, through the sharing knowledge and experience.
Instituto das Irmãs Hospitaleiras do Sagrado Coração de Jesus is committed to a continuous response to the needs of people, times and places, with the incorporation of techniques and methods derived from scientific progress and the updating, theoretical and practical, of all employees. Taking into account the development and strategic planning of the services provided, areas of intervention were prioritized in which, due to their relevance and associated constraints, it is necessary to reinforce, on the one hand, the skills of employees, namely in terms of methodologies and instruments for training the people assisted and their family members/representatives and, on the other hand, the innovative component of the intervention as a positive differentiation factor. Aware of the importance of strengthening the European dimension in organizational development and of the advantages resulting from cooperation and the sharing of transnational experiences, as sources of innovation and improvement, the Institute intended, with this project, to develop a dynamic of collaboration in order to enhance an effective benchlearning process, promoting learning through the identification of good practices and innovating and enhancing the development of new services in the areas of dementia intervention, intellectual disability with serious changes in behavior and self-representation.