This is the “family photo” of the last public action of the GivingCare – Empowering Caregivers.
Santa Maria Health School coordinated an extensive international team, based in our school and also made up of collaborators from the National Association of Neuromusculars, Filmes da Mente, universities in A Coruña (Spain), Kraków (Poland) and Jagiellonia (Slovenia) and EUROCARES , which is the largest association of family/informal caregivers in Europe, which has been developing this project for training caregivers and personal assistants for three years.
On May 5, 2023, a conference took place in Brussels, followed remotely by about a hundred people from different countries, where we explained how the project was developed and its most important conclusions.
In addition to a training course for caregivers in 5 languages, which serves both the needs of family/informal caregivers and professionals, including personal assistants, we have developed an international professional profile that will be presented to national governments and to the European Commission with the aim of contributing to the social and legal recognition of a profession that does not formally exist, but which is increasingly important, although characterized by low training, very low wages, painful working conditions and lack of professional recognition, soon without a real career.
Caregivers Portugal, the Portuguese Association of Caregivers and Santa Maria Health School were at the heart of the project and we will now work to collaborate in the implementation of actions resulting from the work carried out.
We are available to support all initiatives that want to take advantage of the acquired know-how, the experience gained and the training policy guidelines and the structuring of a true caregiving profession.
We are also open to providing support for essential training and support activities for informal/family caregivers. More information available on the website, and everyone is invited to enroll in the Association.
“We are all caregivers, we all need care.”