Purposes and Mission
The mission of Anton Trstenjak Institute is to foster humanistic anthropological thought and to develop programmes and methodology to promote social, mental, spiritual and physical health of individuals, groups and communities. Its main fields of activity are ageing (gerontology) and intergenerational relations, family, meaning of life, methodology in the field of group work, prevention, intoxication and addiction.
Anton Trstejak Institute work also as an end-user organization combining extensive research work with development and application of programs.
Intergenerational programmes for quality ageing have their origin in 1987 when the Institute participated as a partner of Ce.I.S., at a 2 year project named ‘‘Project-men for elderly people’’, under the funding of the European programme Phare-Lien. Along with this programme for elderly people, the Institute has been developing and implementing the concept of local and national network of self-support groups for elderly.
In 1997, the Institute started development National Network for Quality Ageing. Three important features of this network are that it is decentralised, it is based on combination of professional and volunteer work and it involves all stakeholders in the community.
The programmes for quality ageing and good intergenerational relations were formed on the basis of the increased need – due to the rapid ageing of the population, changes in the family structure etc. – to prepare young and middle generation on their own old age and to support older generation. The target group are therefore all three generations.
Comprehensive gerontology systemically integrates three wholes:
- The total anthropological manifestation of the human being in his or her physical, mental, spiritual, social, developmental, and existential dimension, all these dimensions making up an irreducible diasystemic whole.
- A systemic oneness of a human being’s development through all the phases of life from conception till death, forming a single life cycle, holding the same dignity and raison d’être during the young, middle and old age; and a togetherness of the three generations, complementing one another in solidary coexistence.
- An interdisciplinary complementation of all the sciences and cultural endeavours whose accumulated knowledge and technologies can benefit quality aging and intergenerational solidarity; in particular, an interdisciplinary complementation of all psychosocial, medical, educational, and architectural and environmental sciences. At the social and political level, this academic whole’s counterpart is an interdepartmental collaboration between all those social and political authorities that influence quality aging and intergenerational solidarity, particularly the mutual complementation of family, local community, civil society and state.
