MANTELKRACHT MANTELZORG

Our role

The results have led to several publications.

Coaching program: Mantelkracht

Through the coaching program 'Mantelkracht' you, as a practical worker, strive to increase the informal power (the carrying capacity) of informal caregivers. The program is based on five pillars:

• Long and frequent gatherings
• Group and individual meetings
• Collaborate positively and appreciatively
• Continuous input from informal caregivers
• Mix of activities

Supplemented with existing support (e.g. informal care premium or day care), it becomes possible for the informal caregiver to provide better care to the person in need of care... and to themselves!

The think and do book “Informal Power, coaching program for informal caregivers” can be ordered here.

Course program: Mantelkracht

Using the manual and our own experiences, we go through each phase of the Mantelkracht coaching program. The decisions in advance, the start of the program, the individual coaching and the group discussions. Together we look at how we can recruit informal caregivers, what a group meeting looks like, and how you can coach informal caregivers in a positive and appreciative way. We also discuss some important themes and methods that you need to master as a coach, such as stress, the role of thoughts, the gratitude diary and the scaling question. The training puts Mantelkracht's philosophy into practice in a beautiful way: exchanging experiences together and responding flexibly to questions that arise in the group.

Methodology: An eye for informal care

More and more is expected of informal caregivers. But the informal caregiver also benefits from a helping hand and a listening ear. In the Netherlands they work with triadic science, in England they work with “triangle of care” and in Flanders triadic working is gaining more and more interest. Whatever the name, it is about the intense and honest collaboration between client, informal caregivers and care providers.

Together with the Dementia Expertise Center Flanders, we developed training material on triadic working under the name Eye for informal care. With this we want to encourage care providers (particularly from family care) to put triadic working even more into practice.

The training material consists of a series of 13 cases (ten of which are in outpatient care and three in residential care) in which the perspective of the client, informal caregiver and care provider is discussed. There is also a manual with an explanation of triadic working and a detailed scenario for organizing a training session.

Handbook: Care for informal care

Informal care is increasingly on the radar of professional care providers. Due to the socialization of healthcare, the focus is increasingly on the informal network of the care recipient. The children of a parent with dementia, a partner of a traffic victim or the brothers and sisters of a man with psychological problems: in many cases these are powerful informal caregivers who can act as full partners of the care providers.

At the same time, informal caregivers also have their own questions and needs and it is important that they are supported. This handbook responds to this trend and offers both a theoretical framework and practice-oriented tools to (future) professionals with different backgrounds.

The authors all teach in higher education and provide processing exercises for each chapter. The book is filled with cases that are designed in such a way that different professional profiles (nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, orthopedagogues, etc.) can recognize their professional input.