Empowering individuals and communities to manage their own care

EmpowerCare was a three-year technological and social innovation research project aiming to reduce isolation, loneliness and increase solidarity amongst older people and their communities. 

The four-million-euro Interreg-funded project allowed partners to work in collaboration with local people aged 65+, and those aged 50+ with at least one chronic condition, contributing to person-centred care and technology knowledge transfer. 

Partners jointly developed a strategy for implementing good-practice models, a workforce transformation approach via shared training and a technology blueprint with emphasis on caring digital technologies to address the rising demand for health and social care services for older people.

The project addressed this challenge by drawing on community assets, involving older people in decisions about their own health and wellbeing, enabling them to keep healthier and in their own homes and communities safely for longer.

With 13 cross border European partners. It was part of the Interreg VA 2Seas Mers Zeeën and was awarded more than 4 million euros in funding by the European Regional Development Fund. 

Community Asset Based Development approaches aimed to get to the heart of what matters most to local communities by harnessing skills and expertise of local people, co-creating innovations that make a real difference to lives, health and wellbeing. 

EMPOWERCARE aimed to deliver:
> An empowerment strategy to deliver what matters to individuals and communities in order to manage their own care
> A package of resources to enable transformation of the workforce>A Technology Blueprint on initiatives and technology that support enablement at individual and community level
> A comprehensive evaluation report on the value of the EMPOWERCARE approach (Strategy, Workplace Transformation, and Technology Blueprint)

The University of Brighton was responsible for the Technology Blueprint on initiatives and technology that supported enablement at individual and community level. 

We worked along with citizens, carers and healthcare professionals, at the Digital Health Living Lab to co-create, trial and evaluate digital health solutions that would be able to implemented across the borders and healthcare systems.