Bro. Martin Borg fsc and Bro. Austin Gili fsc, president and director of programmes and services of The Eden Foundation recently attended an international conference on Enhancing the European Dimension of Rehabilitation hosted by the Centre de Réadaptation Mulhouse in France.

This conference, which was organised by The European Platform for Rehabilitation (EPR) of which The Eden Foundation is an associate member, is a network of leading European service providers to people with

disabilities and others who are disadvantaged because of acquired disabilities. EPR assists its member organisations to achieve continuous professional improvement, best practice and competitiveness in every aspect of service delivery. Through its public affairs activities, the EPR also enables service providers to contribute to the formulation of European social policy and legislation.

This particular international conference sought to explore the different aspects of international cooperation in rehabilitation and the impacts of the EU enlargement, as well as the communication of social services of general interest.

The conference was organised in the framework of “ProVet”, an EPR project funded by the European Commission.

During the conference, The Eden Foundation was able to strengthen its links with other international organisations working in the field of learning disabilities.

While establishing new contacts for cooperation and studies on autism research and transition programmes, the brothers were happy to confirm The Eden Foundation’s contribution towards

The OPTI-Project. OPTI-Work is a research project that uses recent research and development across a range of disciplines and aims to add value to the EU national employment policy and national systems to promote the integration of people with disabilities into the labour market.

The Eden Foundation is presently involved in, and working towards acquiring EQUASS – The European Quality Assurance for Social Services.

This is a certification of quality assurance for programmes such as those at The Eden Foundation, preparing and training young adults with intellectual disabilities for the world of work. EQUASS is based upon a set of European principles of excellence that are widely accepted and approved by the most important stakeholders at European level.