Two elderly people talking with a nurse

Project: WELL CARE

The WELL CARE project focuses on improving the resilience and mental wellbeing of long-term care (LTC) workers and informal carers by strengthening care partnerships. The WELL CARE project will substantially advance knowledge about support measures for these groups, taking into account both individual (e.g., burnout, care-work conciliation) and external risk factors (e.g., digitalisation in health care, shortage of LTC workers, progressive decrease of available informal carers, ageing populations). The WELL CARE project aims to increase the understanding of successful ways of preventing mental health issues among long-term care workers and informal carers. This includes looking at personal factors, the environment, and how organizations make these solutions successful.

Project information

Project manager
Elizabeth Hanson
Other project members
Lennart Magnusson, Francesco Barbabella, Maria Nilsson, Elin-Sofie Forsgärde, Elisabet Carlstedt; Linnaeus University
Participating organizations
Research partners: Linnéuniversitetet (coordinator, PI), Sweden; Vrije Universiteit, Holland; Istituto Nazionale di Riposa e Cura per Anziani, IRCCS INCRA, Italy; Hochschule Zittau/Goerlitz Universitetet, Germany; Univerza v Ljubljani, Slovenia; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.
Non-profit organisations working in the 5 EU countries in the long term care sectors and informal carers: NZVE, Netherlands; Anziani e Non Solo, Italy; wir pflegen, Germany; Anton Trstenjak Institute of Gerontology and Intergenerational Relations, Slovenia.
4 European NGOs: Mental Health Europe; Eurocarers; European Ageing Network; European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities.
Financier
WELL CARE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101137468
Timetable
1 Jan 2024 - 31 Dec 2027
Subject
Health and Caring Sciences (Department of Health and Caring Sciences, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences)
Webpage
https://wellcare-project.eu/

More about the project

Flytande bild - Well care - logo

The ultimate goal is to develop a set of support measures (prototypes) to address the mental health needs of both LTC workers and informal carers, thus sustaining and enabling a vision of care partnerships between these two groups. By care partnership we mean the coordination, integration, and mutual recognition of care and caring activities performed by LTC workers and informal carers, in a vision of integrated LTC. The WELL CARE project’s specific objectives are:

  1. To identify at least 40 good practices in the European Union (EU) and beyond, able to prevent or mitigate both occupational and non-occupational risks for LTC workers’ and informal carers’ resilience and mental wellbeing.

  2. To develop, test and verify the outcomes of 5-8 innovative solutions (prototypes) in five countries (Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden), together with local ecosystems of stakeholders.

  3. To analyse related EU and national policies and formulate action-oriented recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders

  4. To develop, implement and sustain a process of research, co-design, and sharing and using the findings with all groups involved and stakeholders at national and European levels.

The WELL CARE project will systematically involve LTC workers, care recipients and informal carers, and stakeholders in local communities of practice (the Blended Learning Networks). The project will consistently consider gender, inclusion and intersectionality perspectives to understand possible inequalities and necessary changes for more fair and inclusive policy and practice.

The project is part of the research in The Informal Carers, Care and Caring research group – a research arm of the Nka.

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Staff