Good practices on 'social inclusion through meaningful ageing'. An analysis of six case studies in Europe: European research report 3

In order to explore innovative approaches in care for older adults in Europe, each of the six partners of the European SeeMe project on ‘social inclusion through meaningful ageing’ (www.see-me-project.eu) closely examined a local care project that they recognised as a ‘good practice’. Thus six case studies were performed and scrutinized on inspiring, effective advances to optimizing caregiving skills and competences that may contribute to social inclusion through meaningful ageing. The goals of the case studies were to identify:
• Descriptive characteristics of the good practice project (program elements);
• Innovative principles and organizational features that made it work;
• Required competencies of the caregivers;
• Effective project mechanisms and manners to sustain them in the care organization.

For the overall SeeMe study both intramural and extramural care projects were selected; one of the ‘good practice’ projects included both types of care. In addition, a balanced distribution of the type of caregivers was made, as to include volunteers, informal caregivers and professional caregivers. Furthermore, each of the six case studies was based on multiple data sources:
• Documentation regarding the ‘good practice’ project and the care organization involved;
• In-depth interviews with older adults (clients) and volunteer, informal and professional caregivers;
• If applicable, additional informal observations or talks.

The case studies were mainly based on data from the documents and interviews, whereas informal observations and talks occasionally were used to supplement or check the information.
In all six cases the selected documents concerned organisational year reports, project year reports, policy papers, grant proposals, and websites. Concerning the interviews, per case study five or six respondents were selected for a SeeMe in-depth interview, summing up to 33 respondents: 16 older adults (age range 71 - 91 years), 7 volunteers, 4 informal caregivers and 6 professional caregivers (see Table 1).