During the visit to the care coordination office of the district of Görlitz, the Saxony Dementia Initiative and other self-help initiatives for family caregivers, the focus was on topics such as care, self-help and dementia.
On August 7, 2025, we welcomed Jana Horcickova, care coordinator at the Görlitz district office, and Bärbel Schuster, board member of the Saxony Dementia Initiative e.V., as well as other committed facilitators of self-help initiatives for family caregivers in the district of Görlitz to the Active Assisted Living Lab in Görlitz.
The event began with a brief round of introductions, during which the guests and the team got to know each other. Laboratory manager Maria Fabisch then introduced the AAL laboratory with its projects and goals as well as the current assistance technologies in people's own homes. This introduction quickly led to an intensive discussion about the difficulties and opportunities in home care.
In her work as a care coordinator, Jana Horcickova is an important liaison between those affected, relatives, care facilities and authorities. She supports families in finding the right help, advises on organizational and financial issues and thus makes a significant contribution to orientation in the often complex care system. In turn, the leaders of self-help groups for family caregivers are an indispensable support for many: they offer a space for exchange, provide specialist information, strengthen the sense of community and help to cope better with the stresses and strains of everyday care.
The visit provided an opportunity for an in-depth exchange on current challenges in home care and the question of how we can work together to further strengthen the regional care and support landscape. Concrete ideas were also developed on how the AAL Lab can act even more strongly as an interface between innovation, advice and self-help in the future.
This exchange is also closely linked to the objectives of the Saxony⁵ project. As a cross-university transfer initiative of the five Saxon universities of applied sciences, Saxony⁵ pursues the goal of transferring scientific findings and technological developments into practice and thus making them directly effective in society. The AAL Lab is a vivid example of transfer in action: on the one hand, it makes innovative assistance technologies tangible and accessible, while on the other, it gathers feedback and needs from users, relatives and specialist stakeholders.
This two-way transfer of knowledge is particularly important in the field of care. Only if the perspectives of those affected, relatives and professional support structures are incorporated into development processes from the outset can technologies be created that are actually suitable for everyday use and gain acceptance. The visit by Ms. Horcickova, Ms. Schuster and the moderators of the self-help groups exemplifies how the saxony⁵ network understands transfer work: as a bridge between academia, practice and civil society, working together on sustainable solutions for regional challenges.
We would like to thank everyone involved for their inspiring visit and valuable contribution - together we are making support more visible and accessible, thereby strengthening not only care, but also the basic idea of Saxony⁵: innovation through cooperation.
