Project SPES4Caregiver

The project

SPES4Caregivers was created to further strengthen ANT’s commitment to caregivers and to multiply its impact both in relation to different types of caregivers and beyond national borders.

Those who care for elderly people or people with advanced diseases, especially if they do not have access to adequate training or structured professional networks, are exposed to psychological stress that jeopardises their mental and physical health.

Therefore, SPES4Caregivers aims first and foremost to provide informal/family and professional carers with skills for managing distress and preventing burnout. Secondary, the project aims to promote social inclusion by targeting the most disadvantaged carers who lack economic and social resources.

The project is divided into four work packages:

  1)    Needs analysis and data collection

This aims to identify the needs of the target population in each pilot context. Twenty carers (five per partner) are interviewed, balancing the number of healthcare workers, informal carers and professional carers.

2)    Development of training materials

After analysing the interviews with caregivers, the University of Padua designs role-playing scenarios based on the themes that emerged, to be used in the experiential phase of the course. 

The clinical partners created 15 open educational resources (OER) in the form of e-books, videos and audio tracks to supplement the training course and enable caregivers to easily access the content, even in an asynchronous individual training setting. This was done not only to provide caregivers with flexible training, but also to allow the training material to be shared with a wider audience.

3)    Implementation of the training course

The course involves 80 carers and comprises three classroom-based modules consisting of both lectures and more experiential phases:

–    Module 1: recognition and awareness of burnout symptoms

–    Module 2: using empathy to better recognise one’s own emotions and those of others 

–    Module 3: strategies for reducing stress and preventing burnout

 A local micro-planning phase aims to adapt the training course to the different contexts in which it is implemented. The customisation of the modules may concern, for example, the length of the course, the timing, the type of activities and the delivery methods.

3)    Research

The activities contained in this work package are transversal to the entire project and are divided into various phases:

 Research design: 

1. a) examine theoretical and empirical contributions from relevant scientific literature and formulate research questions
2. b) construct and share a semi-structured narrative interview protocol for carers,
3. c) construct and develop an evaluation grid for the training course,
4. d) share data collection techniques with partners.

Research implementation: 

1. a) collect data from partners,
2. b) analyse data and share results with partners involved and a sample of participants.

Research dissemination: 

disseminate research results to a wider audience so that as many people as possible can benefit from them.  

 Expected results include:

1. a) the publication of scientific articles in leading journals in the field, involvement and participation in major European scientific conferences, and the co-organisation, with other partners, of an international conference/congress:
2. b) the creation, together with clinical partners and external stakeholders, of guidelines for interventions aimed at prevention and health promotion, which can be easily used to implement future interventions

Partners

 ANT Franco Pannuti ETS Foundation (Coordinator – Italy)

 University of Padua (Italy)

Hospices Civils de Lyon (France)

Galilee Palliative Care Unit (Greece)

Istitutul Postliceal Phoenix (Romania)

Duration:

2 years (October 2025 – November 2027)

Funding:

Erasmus+ Programme, for Call 2025 KA220-ADU – Cooperation partnerships in adult education