QV-Cares
Quality association for returning to work after cancer
Quality Network for Career Reintegration
More than a third of new cancer cases in Germany affect people of working age. Staying in and returning to work with or after the disease often poses challenges for those affected.
In cancer counseling centers (KBS), patients and their relatives receive psychosocial counseling in all phases of their illness. Up to now, questions about professional reintegration have only been able to be included in the counseling process to a limited extent. As part of the CARES project, counselors from the cancer counseling centers were trained as career guides to provide more intensive advice on returning to work.
The aim of QV-CARES is to consolidate the intensified and needs-oriented support for returning to work developed during the CARES study in cancer advice centers, to focus more on hard-to-reach target groups and to continuously evaluate the service in order to accompany health services researches. To this end, the existing curriculum for the further training program for career guides will be expanded on the basis of quantitative and qualitative data collection, requirements for career guides in KBS will be formulated and an online tool for long-term data collection will be introduced.
At the end of the project, a permanent quality development structure for vocational reintegration based on existing quality networks for KBS should be in place.
Involved Institutions
Chair of Health Services Research, Institute for Medical Sociology, Health Services Research and Rehabilitation Science, University of Cologne
German Cancer Society (DKG)
Federal Association for Outpatient Psychosocial Cancer Counseling (BAK)
German Association for Social Work in Health Care (DVSG)
Working Group for Social Work in Oncology of the German Cancer Society (ASO)
Life after Cancer! e. V.
Funding
German Federal Pension Insurance
Duration
October 2024 – December 2025
Contact
Dr. rer. medic. Clara Breidenbach
