The Cross-border Space for Ageing project aims to create a sustainable, transferable model for care services in the Spanish-Portuguese border area, with special focus on dementia. Key to this are definition of new professional profiles and communication to raise awareness of the issue.
- 25 January 2016
The aim of the project is to draw upon knowledge, experiences and best practices of institutions, centres and experts of both countries in order to create understanding and increased knowledge on ageing and to identify new professional profiles specialised in elderly people’s quality of life, research and social care, as a way to foster employment and encourage young people to pursue careers in their local area.
The project created the online Virtual Centre for Ageing (CVE) which draws upon international expertise to promote new care models for age-related diseases, taking account of psychosocial care and job creation. It provides a meeting place for those affected by dementia, a blog, a forum, publications, a resource directory, cognitive stimulation and training activities, news, data and good practices.
The CVE keeps families, patients, carers and professionals up to date with innovations and allows them to discover real life stories and better understand dementia. It also gives details of job opportunities in the sector and over 150 000 people have accessed it.
The CVE's Bank of Memories offers people a place to store their memories, and now contains over 40 000. In addition, it highlights the need for research into Alzheimer’s disease.
Seminars and summits
Eleven seminars, attended by nearly 1 500 people and 100 experts, aimed to increase understanding of ageing, identify related professional profiles in law, architecture, social work, computer science and design and showcase good practice. Three international summits, attended by some 1 000 participants, enabled researchers to share expertise, forge links and plan future research.
Through the events, the partners have built up a large network of professional contacts and hope to create a section for professionals within the CVE to contribute to defining new profiles. Many young people looking to enter the care community attended events and the partners intend to encourage this with mentoring and grants.
A campaign in Zamora, Spain encouraged people to volunteer to help the elderly and their families and carers and was hugely successful in terms of time given by volunteers and levels of social inclusion generated, providing support to over 200 families. Similar initiatives are planned in other cities. The project also implemented a care model based on an exercise involving people with dementia, their careers and families and professionals.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Cross-border Space for Ageing” is EUR 2 911 867, of which the EU’s European Regional Development Fund is contributing EUR 2 183 900 from the Operational Programme “Spain - Portugal” for the 2007 to 2013 programming period.