How to progress deinstitutionalisation in Romania?

Doing DI platform recently met with public authorities and service providers from across the Timisoara region in Romania. They are working to put Romania’s deinstitutionalisation strategy into practice.

The participants came with important questions:

• Where can people find housing?
• How can community services be built and sustained?
• How can all this work within complicated laws, low benefits, and limited job opportunities?

Together with colleagues from Romania, Slovakia, Czechia, and Lithuania, Inclusion Europe shared examples and ideas from our own experience. We spoke about what has worked elsewhere and what lessons can be useful in Romania.

But the truth is simple: most answers come from doing. As you move forward with change, new challenges appear — and so do the solutions. Progress happens when people start, learn, and keep going.

Romania has around 16,000 people living in institutions, so there is a lot of work ahead.

The meeting was organised by Fundatia de Abilitare Speranta as part of the Together+ project, funded by the European Union, and took place on 15 September 2025 in Timisoara. Doing DI is a platform created in this project to bring together those working to implement the transition from institutional to community-based care.