The application deadline is 24 October 2023 at 12:00!

The Danish Health Authority is currently inviting applications for a fund of DKK 22.8 million to prevent care fatigue and burnout amongst staff in elderly care. The fund is available to all organisations – both public and private – that work with people with cognitive impairments.

Caregiver burnout can affect anyone who works with people, where the role is complex and places high emotional demands on the individual. The risk of caregiver burnout is not limited to working with service users and their relatives who require support. The workplace’s ability to provide professional support, supervision and peer support, and, more generally, to create a working environment characterised by a fundamental sense of psychological security, is a significant risk factor – but also an opportunity – when it comes to prevention.

”The purpose of this funding scheme is to provide grants to develop and trial methods or models for systematic professional support, supervision or similar activities for staff and managers working in elderly care with people with cognitive impairments.”

The Department of Stress Psychology offers training programmes in the stress psychology approach. The programme takes a holistic, systematic and structured approach to the prevention of caregiver burnout and emotional exhaustion, based on recognised and empirically grounded knowledge of stress psychology.

The method focuses on skills development and on activating the protective factors and resources found within work teams and across the organisation. The aim of the method is to establish new practices and a new culture for the prevention of care fatigue and burnout.

The method involves:

1. Skills development: To foster a shared understanding and awareness of the risk factors that can lead to stress, and the universal human reactions that can lead to care fatigue and, in the worst cases, desensitisation in all workplaces where staff face high emotional demands
   
   
2. Please note: To raise awareness of the signs of mental imbalance arising from the stresses naturally associated with work involving high emotional demands, so that undesirable developments can be prevented, whilst at the same time raising awareness of the protective factors and resources that have a preventative effect and can support both the individual and the work group
   
   
3. A common language centred on the core task: The red-green-blue model creates a common language within working groups (both between colleagues and between managers and staff), which makes it possible to discuss – and share – one’s own and others’ experiences in a safe and constructive way
   
   
4. Practising – and establishing – ”spaces for reflection”, where trust and relationships are built, and psychological safety is strengthened within – and between – work teams
   
   
5. Implementation of new practices, which creates opportunities to pause and listen to one another, for example by introducing the ”Fiskerbænken” or other methods that are appropriate to the workflows and organisation of the individual workplace

The Danish Health Authority has produced some guidance material for the funding application, which refers to the Institute for Stress Psychology and its founder, Rikke Høgsted. See below for further details: 

https://www.sst.dk/da/Vaerdighed/Udgivelser-cases-og-film/2023/Forebyggelse-af-omsorgstraethed-og-forraaelse

If you are considering applying for the funding scheme, we would be happy to help you organise a programme that addresses both the needs and challenges you face within your organisation and the requirements set out for the funding scheme.

Three specific examples of how we can help

1. Theme Days – the traditional theme day, either half-day or full-day, where we introduce and explore stress psychology and/or psychological well-being.
   
   
2. Basic courses – module-based action learning “on demand”, to which you’ll have unlimited access for at least one year, allowing you to work through and revisit the material at your own pace and according to your needs, thereby laying a solid foundation for lasting learning – and prevention! Available in both Strain Psychology and Psychological Safety.
   
   
3. Course – We have had very positive experiences with combining the above approaches, whereby we use training to prepare you for a programme comprising a basic course, which you then work through independently over a period of time, after which we round off the programme with a training day focused on continued implementation and embedding.

If you would like to find out more, please feel free to contact prevention adviser Nynne Kjøller-Svarre by email: nynne@belastningspsykologi.dk or tel. 30 31 24 42.