Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WELL CARE (Investing in the mental wellbeing and resilience of long-term care workers and informal carers through the identification, evaluation and promotion of good practices across Europe)
Berichtszeitraum: 2024-01-01 bis 2025-06-30
Across Europe, millions of people provide essential long-term care, but often at a significant personal cost. The sector is facing immense pressure, which has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic in previous years. Long-term care (LTC) workers, who are predominantly women (88%), face strained working conditions. These include heavy workloads, high emotional demands, irregular hours, and exposure to adverse social behaviours, all of which pose a high risk for developing mental health problems like anxiety, depression, and burnout. This situation has led to difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff, creating shortages in a crucial and growing sector.
Informal carers, who provide nearly 80% of all care in the European Union (EU), face a similar strain. High-intensity caring often carries a “triple penalty,” with negative impacts on carers’ health, financial, and social situations. The burden associated with caregiving is a chronic stress experience, and the pandemic increased the psychological distress and health deterioration experienced by this group.
The overall goal of the WELL CARE project is to strengthen the supports available to LTC workers and informal carers for improving their resilience and mental wellbeing through care partnerships. The EU Care Strategy (2022) recognises that wellbeing is determined by the capacity of both professional and informal carers to provide good care. Therefore, our project focuses on fostering care partnerships, i.e. the coordination, integration, and mutual recognition of care activities performed by both groups.
To achieve this, we have four specific objectives:
1. To review, organise and make available evidence on how to best support the resilience and mental wellbeing of carers. We will identify and analyse 40 good practices from five EU countries and conduct 10 in-depth case studies;
2. To identify, evaluate and promote innovative solutions. We will develop 5-8 transferable "solution prototypes" and support stakeholders in implementing and testing them in Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, and Sweden;
3. To develop and foster evidence-based recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders by analysing policy, legislative, and service frameworks at the EU and national levels;
4. To sustain a continuous process of co-design with end-users and stakeholders through national Blended Learning Networks (BLNs), ensuring our research addresses real needs.
Our project follows a clear pathway to ensure our research translates into real-world change, based on the principle that a ‘one size fits all’ approach does not work for complex challenges like carer wellbeing. Our work is built on several key pillars, including an integrated research and advocacy approach, a participatory design involving end-users at every stage, and a multilevel focus on individuals, organisations, and policy systems.
The WELL CARE project is based on an interdisciplinary approach aimed at exploiting the complementary expertise of partner organisations from research, practice, and advocacy communities, bringing together fields such as health and care sciences, nursing, psychology, sociology of health and caring, social gerontology, geography, and global studies.
Informal carers, who provide nearly 80% of all care in the European Union (EU), face a similar strain. High-intensity caring often carries a “triple penalty,” with negative impacts on carers’ health, financial, and social situations. The burden associated with caregiving is a chronic stress experience, and the pandemic increased the psychological distress and health deterioration experienced by this group.
The overall goal of the WELL CARE project is to strengthen the supports available to LTC workers and informal carers for improving their resilience and mental wellbeing through care partnerships. The EU Care Strategy (2022) recognises that wellbeing is determined by the capacity of both professional and informal carers to provide good care. Therefore, our project focuses on fostering care partnerships, i.e. the coordination, integration, and mutual recognition of care activities performed by both groups.
To achieve this, we have four specific objectives:
1. To review, organise and make available evidence on how to best support the resilience and mental wellbeing of carers. We will identify and analyse 40 good practices from five EU countries and conduct 10 in-depth case studies;
2. To identify, evaluate and promote innovative solutions. We will develop 5-8 transferable "solution prototypes" and support stakeholders in implementing and testing them in Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, and Sweden;
3. To develop and foster evidence-based recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders by analysing policy, legislative, and service frameworks at the EU and national levels;
4. To sustain a continuous process of co-design with end-users and stakeholders through national Blended Learning Networks (BLNs), ensuring our research addresses real needs.
Our project follows a clear pathway to ensure our research translates into real-world change, based on the principle that a ‘one size fits all’ approach does not work for complex challenges like carer wellbeing. Our work is built on several key pillars, including an integrated research and advocacy approach, a participatory design involving end-users at every stage, and a multilevel focus on individuals, organisations, and policy systems.
The WELL CARE project is based on an interdisciplinary approach aimed at exploiting the complementary expertise of partner organisations from research, practice, and advocacy communities, bringing together fields such as health and care sciences, nursing, psychology, sociology of health and caring, social gerontology, geography, and global studies.
Over the first 18 months, the WELL CARE project has made substantial progress in laying the scientific groundwork to support the mental wellbeing and resilience of long-term care (LTC) workers and informal carers. Our activities have focused on building a robust evidence base, developing practical tools for implementation, analysing the policy context, and ensuring all our work is co-created with end-users.
A core scientific achievement has been the comprehensive identification and analysis of existing good practices across Europe. Through a rigorous process, we have built a foundational knowledge base that will inform all subsequent project activities. We conducted a systematic review of both scientific and grey literature to identify promising practices. This involved screening over 16,000 scientific records, resulting in 139 included studies. The grey literature review yielded an additional 103 relevant practices from sources like institutional websites and partner networks. Based on a screening methodology co-developed with stakeholders, and further enriched by 23 expert interviews, we evaluated a pool of over 200 practices. The top 40 highest-ranked good practices were selected (D2.1) and will be further analysed in the next period, in order to understand the success factors and how to adapt them into 'solution prototypes' in our partner countries.
Furthermore, we produced a comprehensive guide (D3.1) to support stakeholders in developing, implementing, and evaluating care partnership practices. Developed through a highly participatory process with input from all project partners and national BLNs, the guide bridges theory and practice. It sets out our project's evidence-informed and design-thinking approach, explains the concept of care partnerships, and provides a preliminary evaluation framework rooted in approaches like Realistic Evaluation and Theory of Change.
A core scientific achievement has been the comprehensive identification and analysis of existing good practices across Europe. Through a rigorous process, we have built a foundational knowledge base that will inform all subsequent project activities. We conducted a systematic review of both scientific and grey literature to identify promising practices. This involved screening over 16,000 scientific records, resulting in 139 included studies. The grey literature review yielded an additional 103 relevant practices from sources like institutional websites and partner networks. Based on a screening methodology co-developed with stakeholders, and further enriched by 23 expert interviews, we evaluated a pool of over 200 practices. The top 40 highest-ranked good practices were selected (D2.1) and will be further analysed in the next period, in order to understand the success factors and how to adapt them into 'solution prototypes' in our partner countries.
Furthermore, we produced a comprehensive guide (D3.1) to support stakeholders in developing, implementing, and evaluating care partnership practices. Developed through a highly participatory process with input from all project partners and national BLNs, the guide bridges theory and practice. It sets out our project's evidence-informed and design-thinking approach, explains the concept of care partnerships, and provides a preliminary evaluation framework rooted in approaches like Realistic Evaluation and Theory of Change.
Based on our progress, early results are already showing a clear pathway to significant impact, while also highlighting the key needs to ensure the project's long-term success and uptake. We have successfully created a systematic knowledge base of 40 good practices (D2.1) and developed a practical, co-designed "Guide to investing in care partnerships" (D3.1). These open resources are already advancing knowledge and providing stakeholders with tools to foster supportive ecosystems. The strong engagement in our five national Blended Learning Networks (BLNs), with high satisfaction reported by participants, is a clear early indicator of the project's capacity for positive empowerment and co-production. To ensure our results translate into lasting change, we are working on several areas, including developing and implementing supportive local ecosystems (networks of stakeholders empowered with knowledge, awareness and experience of implementing the 'solution prototypes'), as well as contributing to raise awareness and debate in the policy arena (through interactions with EU and national policy makers, policy analysis and recommendations).