By Philippe Morin, CEO, Clariane
Building a bridge takes two things: a firm foundation on each side, and someone willing to work the space in between. At Clariane, that is what caring for vulnerable people has always meant to us — connecting generations, professions, and, increasingly, countries. That is why the theme of this year's European Social Services Awards, Building Bridges, resonates so deeply with our own mission. We are proud to stand alongside the European Social Network as a partner of ESSA 2026, because we share a conviction: no single country, provider, or discipline holds all the answers to the challenges facing social and health care today. The solutions we need — for ageing populations, for mental health, for disability, for childhood, for family and long-term care — are being built collaboratively, across borders, right now.
A European community bound by one purpose
Clariane operates across six European countries, bringing together long-term care and specialty care — including mental health — under one shared mission: taking care of each person's humanity in times of vulnerability. Tens of thousands of professionals, across hundreds of facilities, translate that mission into daily practice, in as many languages and regulatory contexts as there are borders between us. If anything has taught us the value of "building bridges," it is this daily work of adapting a single purpose to many realities.
Listening as a bridge in itself
One of the clearest lessons from our own experience is that bridges are not only built between countries — they start between people. This year, our Spanish teams published El valor de cada voz ("The Value of Each Voice"), our annual corporate report, built explicitly around the voices of residents, patients, families, and professionals rather than around figures alone. Every act of care starts with listening, and we believe that principle scales from a single residence to an entire continent: the same exchange of experience that improves one team's practice is what a platform like ESN makes possible at European scale.
What we hope to bring to, and take from, Rome this November:
Concrete models for integrated long-term, social emergencies and mental health care that travel well across borders.
Honest conversation about what digital transformation can and cannot solve in frontline care.
A renewed commitment to designing services around the voices of the people who use them.
Building bridges, together
Social services do not improve in isolation, and neither do we. We look forward to joining fellow providers, policymakers, and civil society partners in Rome on 19–20 November, and we invite the ESN community to reach out, compare notes, and keep building — together — the bridges that vulnerable people across Europe are counting on.