On June 9 and 10, a seminar was held in Dobele, organised by the lead partner of the project – the Dobele County Municipality and attended by 20 social workers from the municipalities of the partners involved in the project – Dobele, Augsdaugava (Latvia) and Akmene, Plunge (Lithuania).
On the first day of seminar, social workers met at the Dobele Centre for Adult education and Business support, where in the first part of the seminar, social workers became acquainted with information about the organisation of evacuation, based on Emergency guidelines developed as part of this project for elderly people. Social workers of both countries continued to work in working groups, where, using the Emergency guidelines in Latvian and Lithuanian languages, they exchanged experience and gathered the most important ideas and opinions for future work, seeking a common approach to emergencies at work with social service clients, including seniors and people with different types of functional disorders.
Within the framework of the EMERG project, each municipality will purchase a specialised transportation vehicle adapted for the carriage of people in wheelchairs as well as on stretchers. The Augsdaugava municipality is the first of the project partners to have purchased such a specialized transportation vehicle. Consequently, in the second – practical part of the seminar, its participants had the opportunity to become acquainted with the specialised transport in person, in Dobele. Its use for evacuations of elderly people, one of the objectives of this project, was discussed and analysed. At the end of the first day, participants of the seminar visited the Day care centre for persons with mental disorders “Solis”, in Dobele, where they became acquainted with the organisation of its work and the services provided.
On the second day of the seminar, social workers had the opportunity to visit and become acquainted with the shelter created in the basement of Forest Faculty of the Latvian University of Biosciences and Technology, in Jelgava, which is fully equipped and has autonomous electricity supply, ventilation and water reserves. Currently, it is planned to commence the adaptation of the first 7 shelters in Dobele County municipality with support from European Union funds and co-financing of the municipality, so municipal specialists from both countries had a unique opportunity to become acquainted with a fully equipped shelter in case of emergencies. At the end of the day, project participants visited Dobele Castle.