We felt that achieving our goal of employee mobility meant forging a partnership with organizations operating in the same professional field as Espace Social. We expected this strategic partnership to create an atmosphere of ongoing, regular cooperation between the partners, likely to lead to longer-term future projects. Beyond the direct effects of the partnership, we also wanted to improve the visibility of this type of action, particularly with regard to the general public and public funders, and thus enhance the image of the homecare professions, making them more attractive, especially to younger people. All this presupposed highlighting the Erasmus+ program, which already enjoys a strong, positive image in the public eye, but is less well known to the general public in its "adult" section. We wanted to promote the social dimension of Europe's action. social dimension. This was the main objective of the final gathering that was to round off our program of activities. Without neglecting the European added value, which became concrete for direct participants in the activities, for the association as a whole, and for external partners.
We applied for this project to enrich our European partnerships through a new type of action. This action - a series of meetings followed by a training course and a conference open to the public - was to reinforce the skills of our teams and add to the visibility of different forms of European projects. For some time now, our association has been opening up to the international arena, in order to see how structures and organizations operating in the same professional field as ourselves carry out their missions, with what results, using what methods or techniques. We also wanted to compare the specific institutional configuration and funding system of France, and indeed of the Gard département, with other patterns of cooperation between public authorities, users and public or private health insurance bodies. After initially applying for and obtaining accreditation in the field of vocational training - which we were unable to use - we responded to calls for proposals in Key Actions 1 and 2, assuming that the notion of "small-scale strategic partnership" would fit our situation and our limited experience.