The ME-WE Model: A co-created and scientifically tested support programme for adolescent young carers

In the framework of the ME-WE project, an ambitious and ground-breaking new support programme for Adolescent Young Carers (AYCs)– the ME-WE Model– was co-designed with young carers and professionals. The ME-WE Model consists in a psychosocial intervention, aimed to strengthen the resilience of adolescent young carers, as well as a mobile app offering peer and professional support at distance.

The ME-WE Model holds many firsts: it is the first scientific intervention in the form of a clinical trial involving adolescent young carers. It has been co-designed with the target audience and it has been tested and evaluated in six European nations (UK, The Netherlands, Sweden, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland), with a varied level of approaches and awareness of young carers.

The project consortium developed a series of layperson briefs focusing on project methodology and evaluation results of the ME-WE Model, providing clear indication about the benefits of this co-created and scientifically tested intervention for young carers.

The set includes seven briefs, one tailored to each project country specific context (SE, UK, SI, IT, CH, NL), one offering a comparison among them.

Each brief follows the same structure:

• Introduction (on young carers, challenges they face, reasons why it is important to take action)
• Background (on level of awareness and support for young carers in each country)
• Methodology (applied in the phases of recruitment, implementation and evaluation)
• Results (quantitative and qualitative, based on the experience of AYCs and of stakeholders)
• Conclusions
• (Evidence-based) Recommendations for policy and practices

The country specific briefs are available in English and in national language.

The briefs target professionals working with youth (school professionals, youth workers, staff of voluntary/carers organisations), or having a high change of ‘meeting’ young people with caring roles in their work (health, care professionals and social workers), as well as policymakers across Europe and beyond.

By providing scientifically based evidence of the positive results of the ME-WE Model, the ambition is for it to be implemented beyond the lifetime of the ME-WE project and beyond its core partnership.

The ME-WE Model is of easy replication. It will be available to interested stakeholders for non-commercial use. The project partners are committed to either provide the ME-WE programme and/ or to train future facilitators (train the trainers).

In this way, many more young carers will have the opportunity to benefit from the co-designed, scientifically tested Model developed in the framework of the ME-WE project. This will be of benefit for them and for society as a whole.

The ME-WE Model briefs can be found here. The ME-WE young carers´ mobile app is available on App Store and Google Play.