WHAT IS THE RESIL4CARE PROJECT?
The project RESIL4CARE (RESILience FOR informal CAREgivers) aims at improving the coping strategies of informal caregivers through the use of mainstream social media and the creation of online support groups.
RESULTS
The Resil4Care project is divided into 5 main results called Project Results (PR), with specific activities and tasks.
PR1 – RESIL4CARE: training determinants and pedagogical framework
The PR1 will deliver a document that presents the determinants that partners will define as the main relevant ones to promote the positive attitudes and the right mind-set adoption in informal carers that will support them in tackling everyday care life. This could improve the emotional and behavioural resilience, given time pressure, environmental and relationship stressors related to the caregiving process and its psycho-social context.
Furthermore, PR1 will analyze the factors that shape the ecology of informal care, in terms of certain requirements that affect these determinants and that are relevant for the pedagogical contents training preparation:
• The potential for creating a qualification framework, that will allow informal carers to develop coping strategies and methods for alleviating their overload. Such a framework is even more needed since most informal carers do not dispose of any prior or relevant training or qualification, while at the same time the prioritization of home care and avoidance of hospitalization for long term care patients, obliges them to assume more responsibilities.
• The potential for quality in informal care in terms of conceptualization and training needs, as one of the least researched areas in the Long Term Care (LTC) literature (Courtin et al., 2014; Gori et al., 2016). The stipulation of the training needs of the informal carers goes in parallel with the impact that is produced by their caregiving services in terms of overload and quality communication for both themselves and the care recipient.
In other words, quality in informal care should be supported through training or relevant applications (social media are a salient example) that will empower them both physically and emotionally, and will give them the opportunity to develop new skills and new competences to improve the care conditions and their wellbeing.
Under this perspective, the successful practical resilience of informal carers, backed up by the support delivered by social networking, can prove to be a crucial tool towards their empowerment and interaction during their caregiving tasks. The educational contents that will play a major role in the self empowerment that should be in the core contents of the training are:
• The use of digital literacy and social networking
• The role of peer support
• The heterogeneity of the informal carers’ needs (regarding their socio-economic status, educational background)
• The role of informal care in the concurrent health and care system
Click below to read the PR1 deliverables: A1 – Methodological plan and preparatory analysis
PR2 – Development of RESIL4CARE training course manual and online materials for better resilience of informal carers
The PR2 will deliver a training course manual on how to set up and run social media support groups and online materials for informal carers to be used on social media platforms. As already described, informal carers often suffer from social isolation and chronic stress due to the complexity of their caregiving situation.
Besides that, lack of time together with geographical and sometimes personal circumstances make it difficult for them to participate in face-to-face support groups. That is even more true for male carers. Social media platforms like Facebook, Google groups and others have the potential to deliver impactful and cost-effective online informal carer support.
However, apart from many advantages, they also have limitations, with a primary limitation being the prevalence of ‘lurking’ (reading the postings in an Internet forum without actively contributing) and the small number of actual content contributors. This limits the diversity of contributions, as well as the quantity and speed of answers to informational or emotional support questions posted to groups and forums.
To overcome these limitations and to ensure sustainability of online support for informal carers, RESIL4CARE finds a solution in the core group of facilitators who are trained to run these online groups.
For effective and quality training, training courses for core group facilitators will be developed as a part of this PR by IAT and partners. Composed of 24 theoretical hours and 36 hours of practical work, it will help core group facilitators to understand adapted principles of online group facilitation including peer-to-peer and in-group social learning methodology.
It will give them technical and social media related skills to effectively set up and run online support groups.
And finally, it will provide them with rounded knowledge about informal carers resilience and recommended online support group contents.
Practical part of the course will further serve to strengthen acquired skills and to learn from transnational experience how to practically collect and publish stories, how to answer questions and moderate support groups by paying constant attention to privacy and ethical issues (defined in PR3).
The training course will include the results of the study carried out in PR1 and the tutorials developed in PR3. To ensure quality of published materials, online content for informal carers will be also developed in this PR. The results of this PR will directly benefit people who want to set up and run online support groups for informal carers, informal carers themselves, and indirectly, numerous care receivers across Europe.
Click below to read the PR2 deliverable: Development of the RESIL4CARE training course manual and online materials for better resilience of informal carers
PR3 – RESIL4CARE ICT training toolkit
Click here to access the platform (on a computer only): https://resil4care.eu/training
The aim of PR3 is to create the RESIL4CARE ICT training toolkit, that is video tutorials and Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), based on the results of PR1 and PR2.
Interactive 4D, the technical partner of the project will manage the creation of these tools. Part of the results (on ICT and social media literacy) of the PR1 will be used during the PR4. Furthermore, this PR is closely related to PR2 and 4, since its results will be included in the training curricula in PR2 and since the video tutorials and the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), will be used to encourage participation in online support groups by each partner.
The aim is to facilitate learning for the end-users – informal carers, engaged in the project. This PR will consider the approaches needed to reduce the digital divide within the community to let the carers get access to digital citizenship. Furthermore the PR3 will also overcome the different needs that come from the informal carers by preparing dedicated and target customized tutorials.
The ICT toolkit will be essential to facilitate the informal carers in the creation of their own network of social contacts within the community of informal carers and to include the most isolated ones that, thanks to the technology, so they could take part in the RESIL4CARE actions.
The focus will be on the main existing social networks that could be easily used and personalised for the online community building and coordination. During the preparation of the ICT digital training tools, ID4 will consider the social media related ethical issues, GDPR and the European and National regulations and guidelines that will allow the full respect of the end users privacy and preferences.
Tutorials on these subjects will be made or selected, in order to promote informed and safe participation. Innovation: The ICT tools that will be specifically produced according to the project topics, training course manual and needs identified during the online support group deployment.
While there are some existing ICT tutorials for older people, tutorials for informed and safe usage of social media platforms are still widely lacking. Impact: The ICT tools will support informal carers in their activities and they will foster the engagement and the participation of additional informal carers.
PR4 – RESIL4CARE support model for informal carers and training course evaluation tool
The purpose of this PR is to describe, deploy and evaluate online support model for informal carers resulting in a training course evaluation tool. The content development of the RESIL4CARE project aims to improve the quality of life of informal carers who could be trained to raise awareness and self-management of stress, improve their resilience and broaden their knowledge. This will be done through the deployment of the online support groups.
More detailed description of informal carers needs and reasoning behind online support groups is already described in PR2. But while PR2 deals with training of the core groups of facilitators (who will be tasked with running the online support group) and content preparation, PR4 deals with deployment of online support groups in order to measure their impact on informal carers and evaluate the training of the core groups of facilitators.
The RESIL4CARE pilots and training course evaluation tools have been designed according to the training modules (PR2, PR3). As described the PR4 aim is to support the development of new skills and competences of informal carers in order to improve their resilience and well-being.
In this context, the pilots will measure efficiency and the level of positive feedback from both, trained core group facilitators and target group learners – informal carers participating in the online social support group.
Click below to read the PR4 deliverable:
Support model for informal carers and training course evalutation tool
PR5 – Guidelines for RESIL4CARE Adoption and Implementation in Organizations
This output will develop guidelines for the RESIL4CARE adoption from other organizations and serve as a toolkit for implementation by external organizations.
The guidelines will describe the strategies and procedures on how to utilize RESIL4CARE as a complete tool. PR5 will also create a methodology of consultation with stakeholders, related to carers, promoting and widening an EU collaborative network.
The target groups are in general, all kinds of potential users of the RESIL4CARE project results, such as organisations of carers and NGOs that work with informal carers, care service providers, health and care professionals, educational and training organisations, policy-makers.
The guidelines should ensure synergy between the project and local, regional or national policy, depending on each country’s regulatory framework.
Click below to read the PR5 deliverable:
Design of the methodologies and confirmation of conclusions and recommendations