WELL CARE Symposium 1 at the 23rd IAGG World Congress of Gerontology in Amsterdam, 5-8 July
A full room and rich discussion for WELL CARE’s first symposium at #IAGG2026 in Amsterdam: “Good practices and solution prototypes to strengthen the mental wellbeing of informal carers and long-term care workers in Europe.”
Chaired by Maria Nilsson together with co-chair Marco Socci, the session opened with an overview of WELL CARE — led by principal investigator Elizabeth Hanson — and its vision of care partnerships across five European countries.
Marco Socci and Gabriele Morettini (INRCA, Italy) then presented the systematic literature review behind the 40 top-ranked good practices and a new Final report on 10 in-depth case studies in 5 European countries.
Good practice examples followed: Sweden’s assertive community treatment teams (Elin-Sofie Forsgärde, Linnaeus University); Italy’s individualised care plan recognising carers’ own needs (Marco Socci); Slovenia’s family carer training and the E-Qalin quality model (Ana Ramovš, Anton Trstenjak Institute, and Miriam Hurtado Monarres, University of Ljubljana); and Germany’s online counselling service Pflegen & Leben (Katja Knauthe, Zittau/Görlitz University).
Chantal Hillebregt (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) presented the participatory methodology for co-designing local solution prototypes, before she, Katja Knauthe and Karin Gasseling (Netherlands Cares for Each Other) showcased the German and Dutch prototypes now being tested.
One message ran through it all: informal carers and long-term care workers have their own right to mental wellbeing — support must be built with them, not only for them.
Funded by the EU Horizon Europe programme.
#WELLCARE #IAGG2026 #InformalCarers #LongTermCare #MentalWellbeing
A report highlighting the 40 top-ranked good practices and a new Final Report on 10 in-depth case studies in 5 European countries are both available at our dedicated project website: https://wellcare-project.eu/
Text, Maria Nilsson, Elizabeth Hanson, Swedish Family Care Competence Centre, Linnaeus University, Sweden.
