The strategic partnership (SP) is going to develop an innovative teaching-learning curriculum of studies aimed to provide to the next generation of student of medicine, psychology, social science and nursing with a vision of dementia care well sound into up-to-date and evidence-based knowledge. Moreover, the SP is going to prepare materials for welfare stakeholders and policy makers aimed to obtain they lobby support to lever the quality of dementia assistance towards a more encouraging disease course. SP transnational and future-oriented pedagogy addresses the dramatic problems European societies are facing: the ageing of its population. Atop of this, the project will also tackle the cultural gap generated by the movement trajectories people immigrants are actuating. The transnational movement of people touches the dementia context in two manners: the former concerns the movement of formal and informal caregivers from one country to another, the other involves the option for immigrants to age in the country where they landed. The scaffolding opera SP aims to erect fits timely with these challenges and with the zeitgeist of the Bologna process, whose analysis advocates transnational features of the HE systems to build: students must be provided with the opportunity to gain internationally recognized knowledge and degree and with the opportunity to move transculturally. Underlying these problems and challenges is the difficulty of the actual EU HE systems to respond to the requests dementia markets are nowadays advancing. In the case responses will result inadequate in terms of developing new educational programs, the risk for the EU welfare system is the collapse. To foster evidence-based knowledge insomuch to reach all the representatives of the academic ecosystem and, in cascade, increase the quality of life of dementia patients and family, SIDECAR partnership creates novel ways to develop psychosocial-scaffolding skills for HE. The skills include the thorough evaluation of needs and values brought by both PWD and caregivers, the strategic thinking and planning of psychosocial interventions, the development of a warm way to offer the plan of intervention in the respect of shared decision-making procedure, the analysis of the possible risks and backfires, the capability to think out of box. SIDECAR SP consists of four international- well-distributed geographically- HE institutes and a series of associate partners such as students’ associations and stakeholders’ representatives and professional bodies. PPI associations will be interested too, and, in a twofold fashion: they will provide constant quality check about project outcomes, but they will also act as dissemination audience. Moreover, the partnership capitalizes on The INTERDEM network, a well-established and effective network composed of the most recognized scholars working in the dementia-related fields. The learning modules the partnership will produce consist of materials for students regarding dementia -related issues and cognate interventions. Materials will be deployed on-line, but a fundamental part regard the pastoral activities trainers will do together with students in order to increase student readiness to enter into the job market. If compared to the very few HE curricula existing nowadays in EU countries, SIECAR blended modality is very innovative as it offered a very personalized response to the HE needs. In addition to modules and learning materials, SIDECAR produces manuals, guidelines and recommendation aimed to foster curriculum scalability. They will inform how-to and what-to develop to deliver successfully both modules and materials. Materials will be electronic and made available upon request in SIDECAR e-learning platform. Partners social-media, newletters, blogs will host news about SIDECAR. In each in partner countries, dissemination events will be organized, or participated such as the case of OPEN-DAY events, fairs or expositions. All the material will be marked with SIDECAR logo, as to increase further project exploit impact. Summarizing, SIDECAR will contribute to students employability, scientific literacy, further development of the psychosocial perspective by instilling in students’ mind the idea that a more encouraging quality of dementia care is possible. On the side of academic stakeholders, they will have the chance to increase their portfolio of knowledge. By incorporate the psychosocial cultural perspectives, the participating institutions will serve as national and international hubs for further collaborative, scientific and educations projects to come. In addition, the project is expected to provide long-term benefits for the research ecosystem: it aims at opening interdisciplinary and potentially ground-breaking research opportunities in dementia field by serving as framework for the development of further investigations considering either dementia per se but also the way cognate teaching is delivered.
The project consortium has developed an innovative curriculum of studies aimed to bloom in the next generation of professionals' perspectives on psychosocial care via a collection of sound, timely and evidence-based knowledge. The consortium embraced a transnational and future-oriented ethos. In the following years, the population ageing and the health standards would affect European welfare, especially for what concerns dementia. Moreover, the migration of people across Europe would highlight cultural singularities, either in the opportunity to age in the landing country or transnational movements of formal caregivers. The scaffolding opera the consortium erected fits with the zeitgeist of the Bologna process, too. The process, indeed, prompts HE to develop opportunities to get transnationally recognised knowledge, which can support professional exchanges beyond international and transcultural borders. The Sidecar curriculum is composed of learning modules, each focusing on those impacted by dementia: one module tackles people with dementia's issues; another module regards the impact on family caregivers; the last one target the formal caregivers supporting both people with dementia and families. The curriculum is online. Once sign-up, either the modules or the topics featuring each module are available and can be attended singularly. Indeed, in comparison to other HE curricula, the possibility to access all the materials or just a part of it makes the current curriculum very fitting for students' personal needs and demands. Moreover, the curriculum is enriched with a manual available online, describing the curriculum itself and supporting its use. Unfortunately, more than half of the project occurred in the pandemic. In the first half of the project, partners could attend and organise live moments where they presented the curriculum's content physically. In the second part, the pandemic imposed on transferring most of the meetings online: no open days, fairs or expositions were recommended. We assume that around 6500 people could learn about the project in this light. Activities participants were manifold: they span from students, academic lecturers and scholars, clinicians and experts in dementia, and Local, National and European politicians. Notwithstanding the difficulties, the project received positive evaluations in all the activities where it was disseminated and explained. The feedback partners collected mainly were. People were curious about the project and interested in signing up for the platform. Once they could evaluate the curriculum materials, participants reported being interested in borrowing the materials in their studies/courses/organisation. All the partners took part and organised activities so that the feedback was either local or international. When it comes from local activities, they recommended translating the materials in as many local languages as possible to reach even those interested in the phenomena but not comfortable with materials in English. Project dissemination also capitalised on social media: Every Thursday, the consortium posts new publications, advertise project progression, or activity inside FB and Tw pages. Moreover, we promoted external pages and information appearing salient for anyone keen to be updated about scientific progress in dementia via the accounts. SIDECAR would surely increase the scientific literacy on psychosocial care of the next generation of professionals interested in working in the contexts of dementia. In this way, it would impact dementia-related stigma towards a caring culture focused on the possibility of living well even with dementia. Sidecar targets are students, professionals, and HE teachers, who can adopt our materials to increase their portfolio of knowledge. One of the long-term benefits the project has developed involves peer collaborations. The project has created national and international connections among colleagues sharing the same view, and others are formalising.