Cuidadoras en Red

Spain

01-11-2008

01-11-2011

The service aimed:

• To promote communication and collective action to support work and the generation of social identity;

• To create a space to exchange knowledge, experience and resources for self-care and for the care of older people and dependents;

• To establish and promote training in the care of older people and dependents and to facilitate the transfer from informal to formal care;

• To develop digital literacy by enhancing access to the internet.

 

Cuidadoras en Red is part of the Project Cuidatel, a multi-platform for family carers, formal carers and informal immigrant care assistants. This social network set up was driven by the willingness of promoting and generating quality input rather than mass participation. For some carers, the network is another way in which they can continue and develop relationships with other carers, previously established during the different training courses designed for them (Redecker et al., 2010).

 Care Recipients
 Informal carers
 Paid assistants
 Formal carers

Not available

 Independent Living
 Information and learning for carers
 Personal Support and Social Integration for carer
 Care coordination

The initiative provided four types of services:

• Communities with blogs, forums, videos, photos and files
• Personal Blogs
• Micro blogs
• Messages

The activities of the open communities were:

• A meeting point and support for informal and formal carers of older people with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia.

• Self-care: to share documents and experiences to improve the quality of life of informal and formal carers. There is also a forum to share hobbies and interests.

• Carers of Pizarra: Private community for family carers of Pizarra, which was a pioneer in learning how to use the internet.

• Immigrants in family care: Meeting point and support for immigrants who are formal carers of dependent older people.

• There was a space dedicated to share experiences and information about dependence. The 39/2006 law for the promotion and personal care of dependent people has helped publicise the situation of dependent older people and their informal and formal carers.

• Health Care: In this community, resources and expertise could be shared to improve the quality of care.

• Our News: A community where people could share news, events, projects, publications, etc. Which could promote the work performed by informal and formal carers.

• Workshop on the internet and other ICTs: Framework for teaching to increase digital literacy regarding ICT and the internet.

A personal computer with an internet connection.

Public only

Public service funding: Government, Regional, Local Authorities, non-profit public entities

The initiative was promoted by the I2BC Institute of Innovation for Public Welfare of the Regional Government of Andalusia with the collaboration of the Nursing Department of the University of Málaga (UMA).

Other: please specify

Not applicable

Not available

The initiative has not been funded since November 2011, when I2BC was closed, although the Institute of Innovation for Public Welfare gave technology support to Cuidadoras en Red for a short period afterward. Presently, the University of Málaga Nursing Department has no a plan for re-launch the initiative.

Not available

 Authorities
 Private Care Sector
 Health and Social Care Systems
 Third Sector
 Private Companies

Also Public Higher Education is involved.

Not available

 Informal Carers
 Health Professionals
 Social Care Professionals
 Privately-Hired Care Assistants (inc. Migrant Care Workers)
 Volunteers

The service involved IT professionals in addition to nurses, doctors and professionals from the psychological and social fields.

Not involved

On September 2010 there were 162 persons attending the community. An impact assessment carried by Málaga University in 2012 reported that there were 247 blog participants and 291 messages (Carrión, 2010).

The main promotional channel was the initiative’s website but, currently it does not work, as the service is not running.

The service may positively impact on:

-Informal carers and paid assistants by allowing them to share experiences, to access consultation services and to be trained. 100% of the participants increased their digital skills. 44% learned how to recognise information needs, identify and evaluate information, store and retrieve information and make effective and ethical use of information. 40% learned to use social networks.

- Older people by improving the quality of the delivered care (Carrión, 2010).

The service could have a positive impact on private care organisations by providing training (Carrión, 2010).

The service could have benefitted the National Health Service by improving the general quality of care helping to decrease emergency department visits and save costs (Carrión, 2010).

Strengths:

1. The service offered a special community for immigrant care workers and informal carers. (There was a special community for “Immigrant care workers and informal care assistants” in which 6 members regularly used it in 2009.)
2. There was a constant effort to make the network dynamic and valuable for users by the service managers.

Weaknesses:

1. Even though the design of this social network aimed to promote and generate quality input rather than mass participation, the lack of a plan to promote the initiative and reach new users was one of the factors leading to its closure.
2. The lack of an impact assessment.
3. The lack of additional funding.

Challenges:

1. The main challenge was to make the network more dynamic, to help users take full advantage of all the available resources and to guarantee that users were always satisfied
2. Another challenge was to find additional resources to restart the service.

People living in many different parts of the country accessed the service. Both scalability and transferability could be facilitated by its low cost and its digital nature.

References

Carrión T. (2010). Cuidadoras en Red. Presentation at epractice.eu, eInclusion days-Digital Literacy , available at http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/caregiversnetwork

Redecker C., Reig J., Carrion T., Martinez S., Armajones M., McCarthy D., Fernandez M., (2010), The potential of ICT in supporting Domiciliary Care in Spain, JRC-IPTS, http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC61083.pdf.

Resources:

Mrs Carrion Trinidad, Nursing Department of the University of Malaga, case-study updating, February 2014, via direct contact.

Email: trinicar@uma.es