Our main objective was to develop an adult educational methodology that could provide public service operators with complex support for community-based service development. We aimed to provide adult learning opportunities for professionals, the local community members and service users regarding community-based service delivery, with a specific focus on the role of the institution, the community and the individuals (experts by experience). With the field work process and the workshops as well as the development of the professional materials we aimed to enhance the various competencies of the stakeholders and later, the users of the developed materials in order to be able to use collaborative methods to implement the effective community-based transformation of public services. In addition to the the results and profits offered for the public, we also aimed to achieve some organizational objectives: learning a new aspect and new methods of development work (building on peer learners' and workers potentials and common principles - HACD and CAL), extending our field of operation and cooperation (each organization) and developing a methodology to be capable to serve communities in new fields (CMHCD).
The partners applied for this project because each of us had the experience that people face social exclusion and over-institutionalised systems in the operation of public social and cultural services, thus systematically conserving the hospitalisation of service users, while professionals and professional support was lacking a holistic view of human well-being (which was inevitable for personal and community integration and recovery in our understanding). We wanted to enhance citizen participation in the dimension of public social care and cultural services building on personal and institutional needs: the needs of the members of excluded groups to get closer to their communities as well as gain a bigger share in influencing their own lives and the needs of social and cultural institutions to become more open to their target groups and involve them and the local community in planning and implementing various aspects of their operation (which was and is not an idealistic will to make the world a better place but a very practical interest of the institutions and the societies, as well).