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Care for Carers
Start date: Oct 1, 2016, End date: Sep 30, 2018 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The Care for Carers (CfC) project will bring together 6 European Partners with specific expertise in training of carers or provision of care within the Dementia Care arena, either as VET organisations, Healthcare professionals or Enterprises within the healthcare education field. The partner countries are United Kingdom, Austria, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and Turkey and provide a good geographic spread within Europe in a transnational partnership that captures a truly pan-European perspective. The partners plan to develop an interactive learning interface to support informal carers and formal carers who provide Dementia care in the home environment, at three different levels of intervention (early, middle, final). These intellectual outputs will be translated into all partner languages and include a carer handbook containing guidance on the learning material, with an accompanying carer diary that will be supported with interactive materials, digital aids and smart technology apps to allow flexible support and learning that suits their time availability as well as their individual learning needs and style, through a blended learning interactive portal.It is estimated that by 2040, 14 million Europeans will be affected by Alzheimer’s disease, costing about €140 billion in care each year. It is anticipated that these figures for dementia will double every 20 years (Máire Geoghegan-Quinn Irish European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science from 2010 to 2014). These findings are further corroborated by the European Dementia Research Agenda (2011) who cite estimations of 7.3 million people living with Dementia in Europe and also anticipate that these figures for dementia will double every 20 years. Additionally, the European Commission SWD (2014) 321 'Implementation report on the Commission Communication on a European initiative on Alzheimer's disease and other dementias' Joint Action ALCOVE findings show "that patients, family members who provide care for persons with dementia and health professionals need to have access to education on dementia care and its psychological aspects."Home care givers are the bedrock of support and care across Europe, and there is a need for further collaborative work to improve care practice, in the home care environment where the majority of those living with dementia are situated. The primary focus for this project proposal is to develop basic and transversal skills using innovative methods to enhance carers capacity and sustainability. Throughout the 24 month duration of this project the partners will participate in 5 transnational meetings, 4 training workshops, 7 dissemination events and deliver 6 intellectual outputs that will be collated and accessible through an interactive learning portal hosted online by the lead partner. The innovativeness of the project will be the creation and delivery of new and effective strategies for enhancing basic skills in this area founded on collaborative pooling of best transnational practice knowledge and expertise of the project partners. Through accreditation organisations such as Open College Network Northern Ireland (OCNNI), opportunities to formally acknowledge the learning outcomes achieved will also be explored. The partners at National level have already engaged with stakeholder organisations in arriving at the the definition of the three stages of care intervention that will be supported through this project. The intellectual outputs developed will be tested initially on focus groups within each partner organisation, and then trialled externally with a minimum of 12 stakeholders in each partner country. Through cascading testing phases with focus groups and 72 stakeholders in the 6 partner countries it is anticipated that a minimum of 732 participants will be engaged and will indirectly gain from the funding of this project. The objectives of the Care for Carers project are fully in line with the European Commission's aim to support patients and carers as outlined in the Joint ALCOVE findings as well as the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership aims that correspond with the Erasmus+ VET projects priority of "further strengthening key competences in VET curricula and providing more effective opportunities to acquire or develop those skills through I-VET and C-VET".
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