La Bastide

About La Bastide

La Bastide is a Belgian non-profit institution in Namur that provides therapeutic residential support for adults who are deaf or deafblind and who face socio-professional, psychological, physical, or family-related difficulties. Founded in 1983, it describes itself as the only residential service in the French-speaking part of Belgium with infrastructure specifically adapted to this population.

Its work is organized around three residential settings spread across three sites: a main residence, a more family-like unit for people with multiple disabilities, and supervised apartments for residents who are more autonomous. The institution serves adults whose communication needs require a sign-language-based, multidisciplinary approach, and it also opens some services and facilities to the wider associative and family community.

Core Values

• Communication first: La Bastide places communication at the center of its approach and uses sign language as the preferred mode of exchange. It aims to give residents the desire and ability to communicate through a relational, multidisciplinary method.
• Respect for individual pace: Support is built around each resident’s aspirations, capacities, difficulties, and level of autonomy. Projects are adjusted over time as residents evolve.
• Human warmth and stability: The institution emphasizes a reassuring, structured, and family-like environment, especially for residents who need continuity and emotional security.
• Social inclusion and autonomy: Its objectives include community integration, personal fulfillment, and, where possible, social and professional reintegration.
• Open and collaborative care: Families are treated as key interlocutors, and the institution works with a broad network of professionals, including deaf staff members.

Unique Aspects

• Only specialized residential service in French-speaking Belgium: The website states that La Bastide is the only residential service in the French-speaking part of the country with infrastructure specifically adapted for deaf and deafblind adults.
• Three-site model: Its residential offer is split across La Bastide, Roquebrune, and Lioba, allowing different levels of support from intensive care to more autonomous living.
• Sign-language-trained workforce: The institution organizes its human and structural model around staff training in sign language and the inclusion of deaf professionals.
• European role in mental health and deafness: La Bastide has contributed to the development of adapted mental-health services for deaf people and took part in creating a European network in this field.
• Community-facing facilities: Beyond residential care, it offers conference and meeting spaces to local associations and families, with residents involved in the service, creating a socially useful activity.