Informal caregiving remains the backbone of care provision in Europe and for many dependent older people it is their preferred care option: family carers across the EU provide over 80% of all care, with women providing approximately two thirds of care mainly as daughters (in law) and wives/partners (European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, 2010). The OECD study “Help wanted? Providing and Paying for the Long Term Care” published in 2011 states that “Supporting the role of informal carers (family and friends providing mostly unpaid care to frail seniors) is important to providing an adequate continuum between formal and informal care”. However, it points out that that combining work and caring duties can be difficult and can lead informal carers to quit their job or reduce their working hours, with negative effects on their career and social status. In fact, “providing personal care can be a demanding task that is incompatible with a full time job or with any type of paid employment”. The unpredictability of caring duties’ intensity, coupled with the lack of flexibility usually featuring the working world makes it difficult to maintain one’s job. In addition, the study highlights that socially disadvantaged families tend to engage more in caregiving and to have less employment opportunities. Without adequate support, informal caregiving might exacerbate employment and health inequalities for these groups of carers. It may also reduce the chances of working age carers to re-enter the labour market during or at the end of the caring spell. The project TRACK responds to the above-described needs by proposing a preventive action of education based on a strong cooperation between informal caregivers, training providers and care professionals. This action will address first specific competences for promoting independent living for care recipients (therefore by equipping caregivers with methods and approaches to actively involve care recipients, with due respect of her/his impairment, in daily activities). This is very relevant, as impaired seniors often have very different behaviours at home after a hospitalisation period, often refusing to react to disease, to be compliant with medication and therapies, and frequently avoiding to undertake daily activities that are still in their physical and mental capacity. This attitude usually worsen the illness, and speeds deterioration of mental and physical abilities. To this respect, caregiver attitude can effectively change the care recipient behaviour, if equipped with techniques and methods to promote independent living, therefore avoiding care as “pure assistance to illness”. The project will address also the development of transversal care competences (such as e.g. communication skills, care planning), and competences for the illness management of the care recipients (e.g. symptoms management). Finally, a support from professionals care workers is also foreseen, which should be arranged more as a mentoring, than as an intervention in special or urgent moments. The TRACK project aims therefore at designing, developing and testing a blended training programme addressing socially disadvantaged informal caregivers in the field of assistance and independent living enhancement for care recipients affected by dementia. Based on the results of the first three courses that will be carried out in France, Spain and Germany during the project, TRACK will develop assessment methods for the skills acquired by informal caregivers and provide a roadmap for the certification of such skills: this is expected to improve chances for employability of informal caregivers who have given up their job to assist care recipients full time or who are homemakers but would like (or need) to find a job to improve their economic and social condition. The action will be implemented transnationally in order to define a European framework for the delivery of the training programme and for the certification of the acquired skills.
Demographic ageing in the EU leads more and more people to engage in informal care giving. It is indeed the backbone of care provision in Europe: around 100 million of family carers across the EU provide over 80% of all care, from which 2/3 are women, mainly daughters (in law) and wives/partners. In addition, the number of people affected by degenerative diseases is also increasing, among which Alzheimer represents about 10 million. At the same time, key social changes, such as the massive access of women to education and to the labour market, have greatly impacted care provision. A shortage of labour supply in caring services is expected to reach 20 million by 2025. In this context, TRACK project (TRAining and recognition of informal Carers’ sKills) addressed socially disadvantaged informal carers dealing with people affected by Alzheimer, to support them during their caring experience and beyond, by reinforcing their well-being, skills, and employability. This multifaceted goal required a complementary consortium, composed by 6 partners from 5 member states: • IPERIA, a VET provider and certification body for care workers, • Diputación Provincial de Jaén, a provincial government, • WBS Training, a VET provider, • La Compagnie des Aidants, an association of informal carers • WIAB, a research institution on labour market and education research • EUROCARERS, a European organisation representing carers at EU level. To reach this main project goal, 2 main objectives were fixed: 1. to design, develop and test (in France, Germany and Spain) a tailored blended training programme, and 2. to develop a roadmap for the recognition and certification of the skills acquired by informal carers thanks to TRACK training and their caring experience, enabling to valorise hem and to identify professionalising perspectives for those wishing so. To do so, a study to define the learning needs and the training offer available for carers in the EU was conducted. It involved 58 experts consulted, 26 publications, 8 initiatives and 10 EU projects reviewed. Its conclusions were validated by 3 focus groups gathering a total of more than 40 stakeholders, among which informal carers, care and health professionals and representatives of local communities: the need of adapted training, the obstacles (lack of time, replacement for caring during training), the preference for blended learning (face-to-face and online) and the most relevant issues (information about Alzheimer, stress management, self-care, communication and daily activities). Based on these results, a training programme was designed in 4 languages (EN/FR/ES/DE) and tested by around 60 participants. A short (about 20h), blended, and micro-learning-based training, including: • The Training kit: user’s guide and face-to-face, • Online resources: eLearning contents, quiz and info sheets. According to the evaluation, 90% of the informal carers were satisfied and 84% considered the training as operational, helping them to be aware of the skills developed (care planning, resources finding, communication and stress management, etc.). In parallel, a feasibility study was conducted to explore further development of the training and certification perspectives, on the basis of interviews with 6 national and 2 international certification experts, as well as the analysis of 25 good practice projects at national and EU level, 8 initiatives and 10 EU projects. The conclusions highlighted the importance of using existing tools and mechanisms (available professional certifications and available processes for the validation of experience on care sector), as well as ensuring online free open access to the training programme to guarantee long-term impact. These conclusions were validated as well by 3 focus groups that gathered more than 60 stakeholders and experts (informal carers, professional caregivers and health professionals, policy representatives, decision makers, validation experts, VET professionals and information providers for the elderly and public employment services, recruitment agencies and enterprises) who considered TRACK training as a facilitation tool for empowerment, professional positioning and employability for informal carers. All these results enabled to draft the roadmap for the recognition and certification of the skills of informal carers, validated as well during the final conference of the project in Brussels. Around 80 participants, stakeholders and experts in the field of informal care and training, as well as representatives of the European Parliament and the European Commission, who made possible to attain a reinforced dissemination and sustainability.