Enhancing employability of older workers and caregivers through technology solutions
With funding from AGE-WELL, Canada’s technology and aging network (2020-2023), we are:
- deepening our understanding of employment barriers experienced by family caregivers and older workers
- contributing to the development of MatchWork, a cloud-based platform that empowers employment service agencies helping hard-to-employ people by ensuring it meets the needs of job seekers such as older workers and family caregivers
- extending MatchWork’s reach beyond Alberta’s borders
- informing the development of Caregivers Alberta’s Work & Care program.
Curious about this project?
- Read more about how this Alberta partnership aims to help unpaid caregivers find flexible jobs.
- Watch our TV interview on Global TV News Health Matters with Su-Ling Goh about our initiative that helps unpaid caregivers find flexible employment.
- Watch a catalytic conversation with team members about enhancing the employability of older workers. Featuring Roger Marple, Kenya Kondo, Laura Tamblyn Watts and Janet Fast, our panelists discuss how to help people who experience challenges to work: by redressing misconceptions, by co-developing technology solutions, and by advocating for better workplace and public policies.
Understanding Caregivers’ Needs
With funding from AGE-WELL, Canada’s technology and aging network, over the past five years (2015-2020) we have:
- deepened our understanding of family care across the life course and the health, social and financial consequences family/friend caregivers experience
- assessed the potential for Assistive Technologies (AT) to meet family/friend caregivers’ needs and goals
- understanding the Information and Communication Technology (digital literacy) skills of older workers and family/friend caregivers. ICT literacy and the role of assistive technology in helping older workers
- conducted a feasibility study to collect evidence about employers’ and their carer-employees’ experiences with and beliefs about how ATs can help them integrate, manage or balance paid work and care work roles. Connecting Working Caregivers Project Summary
- contributed to the development of Huddol, the first cross-disease, cross-platform, social health network that aims to help family and friend caregivers connect with each other and health care professionals
- mobilized knowledge by co-creating with older adults several illustrated short films that reflect common problems older persons may experience and designed things as potential solutions.
Sustainable Care: Connecting People and Systems
With funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (2018-2021) and in collaboration with the Sustainable Care team led by Professor Sue Yeandle at Sheffield University, we have:
- conducted a policy scan of carer leave policies in Canada
- compared carer leave policies across 10 countries and their implications for working carers as part of a forthcoming edited book by Janet Fast, Jason Heyes, Kate Hamblin, and Combining Work and Care that will be published in 2023 by Policy Press
- created snapshots of carer leaves in Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Slovenia, Sweden, and the UK
- co-wrote with Arlene Astell (U Toronto) a chapter on Technology and Care in Canada as part of a forthcoming book on Care Technologies for Ageing Societies: An International Comparison, edited by Kate Hamblin and Matthew Lariviere and published in 2023 by the Bristol University Press.
- built capacity among the next generation of international scholars.