Skills in Dementia Care: Building psychosocial knowledge and best practice in dementia care (SiDECar) is a 35 months project which focuses on developing a new transnational curriculum of HE programs for students and workers interested in dementia care. Coordinated by the University of Bologna (Prof. Rabih Chattat), the other ones involved in this project are: the University of Salamanca (Prof. Manuel Franco), the University of Maastricht (Prof. Marjolein De Vugt) and the Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education (Prof. Iva Holmerova and Pavla Povolna).
Activities will be several. First, a systematic literature review about dementia and best practices will be conducted in order to identify the most effective psychosocial interventions for people with dementia and their formal and informal caregivers (Aim 1). This will allow to identify a list of topics that will become the core for the development of academic courses and/or curricula (Aim 2). Several outcomes will be distilled: formalized courses/curricula syllabus and materials, guidelines, manuals and recommendations (Aim 3). SIDECAR curriculum will be programmed, developed and qualitatively checked by a group of EU Academic researchers and members of the INTERDEM network. By capitalizing on the network, SIDECAR will ensure a direct transfer of the most solid and innovative scientific evidence into HE curricula.
SiDECar expected impact is situated on different levels: academic, professional and political ones. Recommendations and actions related to the project results will be widely disseminated. Its final aim is to achieve a broad awareness towards dementia by keeping the focus on those psychosocial actions that can be implemented to improve the quality of life of people with dementia, formal and informal caregivers.
An overview of the Sidecar project is also available on the website of each partner universities. The links are as follows:
