Ι CARE

Europe's ageing population increases the need for quality long-term care, yet ICT, social and basic-skills training for both formal and informal caregivers is largely absent from Vocational Education and Training (VET) and university curricula in countries such as Italy and France. In Greece and Cyprus, informal caregivers represent 70-85% of the care workforce and typically lack basic-skills training.

The I-CARE project set out to develop a multifaceted adult-education methodology to improve quality of life for both carers and care recipients, involving higher education institutions, VET organisations, patient associations and social cooperatives across four countries (Greece, Cyprus, Italy, France) to identify current ICT, social and basic-skills practices among caregivers and map educational needs and skills gaps.

The project developed a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in four languages (English, Italian, French and Greek) covering basic healthcare, ICT and soft skills, with content tailored to caregivers' educational level and socio-cultural background and to care recipients' perspective on their caregivers' training needs. Two 5-day joint mobility training sessions were held, attended by 22 caregivers in total from the four VET and patient organisations in the consortium.

The project's main output, the i-Care MOOC, was successfully developed, tested and validated and disseminated to interested parties and networks. Partner organisations and their supporting networks committed to continue promoting and sustaining the MOOC's operation after the project ended, with multiplying events reported taking place post-completion.