Nazi Looted Art: View of a Dutch Square Through Time

After World War II, many Jewish families and their possessions were displaced or seized by German forces, only to resurface after the war. The case of the Kraus family and their painting, View of a Dutch Square, confiscated by the Nazis in 1941, raises particular questions about restitution laws. Our project traces the origin of the painting and displays how the restitution process fell apart when the Bavarian government, charged with the responsibility of returning stolen art to its rightful owners, failed to follow through on their commitment: even returning missing art pieces to the very Nazis who stole them. The current case brought by their grandson, John Graykowski, is an important example of how across Europe families have been devastated by the failed efforts to return works of art to their rightful owners

The first cross-national study of adolescent young carers aged 15-17 in six European countries

This paper provides an original cross-national profile of adolescents who provide unpaid care to ill or disabled family members ('Adolescent Young Carers/AYCs') in six European countries. Utilizing an online survey, 2,099 AYCs were identified in Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. This paper focuses on the impact of care onto their mental health well-being, physical health, and education, as well as their preferences for informal and formal support. These groundbreaking findings help promote a 'rights' approach for AYCs, which can serve as a critical driver for supportive policy creation on both a country-specific and Pan-European level

Recruitment of adolescent young carers to a psychosocial support intervention study in six European countries: lessons learned from the ME-WE project

Young carers provide a substantial amount of care to family members and support to friends, yet their situation has not been actively addressed in research and policy in many European countries or indeed globally. Awareness of their situation by professionals and among children and young carers themselves remains low overall. Thus, young carers remain a largely hidden group within society. This study reports and analyses the recruitment process in a multi-centre intervention study offering psychosocial support to adolescent young carers (AYCs) aged 15–17 years. A cluster-randomised controlled trial was designed, with recruitment taking place in Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom exploiting various channels, including partnerships with schools, health and social services and carers organisations. In total, 478 AYCs were recruited and, after screening failures, withdrawals and initial dropouts, 217 were enrolled and started the intervention. Challenges encountered in reaching, recruiting and retaining AYCs included low levels of awareness among AYCs, a low willingness to participate in study activities, uncertainty about the prevalence of AYCs, a limited school capacity to support the recruitment; COVID-19 spreading in 2020–2021 and related restrictions. Based on this experience, recommendations are put forward for how to better engage AYCs in research

Research and Innovation for and with Adolescent Young Carers to Influence Policy and Practice—The European Union Funded “ME-WE” Project

Young carers are children and adolescents who provide care to other family members or friends, taking over responsibilities that are usually associated with adulthood. There is emerging but still scarce knowledge worldwide about the phenomenon of young carers and the impact of a caring role on their health, social and personal development spheres. This paper provides an overview of the main results from the ME-WE project, which is the first European research and innovation project dedicated to adolescent young carers (AYCs) (15–17 years). The project methods relied on three main activities: (1) a systematization of knowledge (by means of a survey to AYCs, country case studies, Delphi study, literature review); (2) the co-design, implementation and evaluation of a primary prevention intervention addressing AYCs’ mental health (by means of Blended Learning Networks and a clinical trial in six European countries); (3) the implementation of knowledge translation actions for dissemination, awareness, advocacy and lobbying (by means of national and international stakeholder networks, as well as traditional and new media). Project results substantially contributed to a better understanding of AYCs’ conditions, needs and preferences, defined tailored support intervention (resilient to COVID-19 related restrictions), and significant improvements in national and European policies for AYCs

Lean Principles to Improve Quality in High-Throughput COVID-19 Testing Using SwabSeq: A Barcoded Sequencing-Based Testing Platform

ObjectiveTo describe and quantify the effect of quality control (QC) metrics to increase testing efficiency in a high-complexity, Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments-certified laboratory that uses amplicon-based, next generation sequencing for the clinical detection of SARS-CoV-2. To enable rapid scalability to several thousands of specimens per day without fully automated platforms, we developed internal QC methods to ensure high-accuracy testing.MethodsWe implemented procedures to increase efficiency by applying the Lean Six Sigma model into our sequencing-based COVID-19 detection.ResultsThe application of the Lean Six Sigma model increased laboratory efficiency by reducing errors, allowing for a higher testing volume to be met with minimal staffing. Furthermore, these improvements resulted in an improved turnaround time.ConclusionLean Six Sigma model execution has increased laboratory efficiency by decreasing critical testing errors and has prepared the laboratory for future scaling up to 50,000 tests per day

Adolescent young carers who provide help and support to friends

Prior studies emphasize the value of friends’ support for children/adolescents who have a disability or suffer from mental ill-health or a long-term illness. However, few studies have explored how a caring role affects those young friend carers themselves. This paper addresses a gap in the research by focusing on this hitherto neglected group of young carers to explore the impact of providing care to friends. An online survey was employed for a cross-national study conducted in 2018–2019 in Sweden, Italy, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom to examine the incidence of adolescent young friend carers, the extent of care they provide, and their self-reported health, well-being, and school situation. The survey was completed by 7146 adolescents, aged 15–17, and 1121 of them provided care to a friend with a health-related condition, most frequently mental ill-health. They carried out high levels of caring activities, and a quarter of them also provided care to a family member. They experienced both positive and negative aspects of caring. Nevertheless, in comparison with adolescents who provided care to family members, they reported more health problems, with a dominance of mental ill-health, and they received lower levels of support. Since adolescent friends play a valuable role for young people with health-related conditions, especially mental ill-health, it is important to find ways of optimizing their caring experiences in order that those adolescents who choose to care for a friend can do so without it having a negative impact on their own mental health, well-being, and life situation

Adolescent young carers who provide care to siblings

A child’s disability, long-term illness, or mental ill-health is known to affect siblings’ health, social life, school engagement, and quality of life. This article addresses a research gap by its focus on young sibling carers and the impact of providing care to a sibling. A cross-national survey study was conducted in 2018–2019 (Italy, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK) to examine the incidence of adolescent sibling carers, the extent of care they provide, and their self-reported health, well-being, and school situation. The survey was completed by 7146 adolescents, aged 15–17, and 1444 of them provided care to family members with health-related conditions. Out of these, 286 were identified as Sibling Carers and 668 as Parent Carers, while 181 had both sibling(s) and parent(s) with health-related conditions, and thus were identified as Sibling–Parent Carers. Sibling Carers and Sibling–Parent Carers carried out higher levels of caring activities compared to Parent Carers. They reported both positive aspects of caring, such as increased maturity, and negative aspects, such as mental ill-health, impact on schooling and a lack of support. To reduce the negative aspects of a sibling carer role, it is important to recognise them and to implement early preventive measures and formal support

Research and innovation for and with adolescent young carers to influence policy and practice—The European Union funded “ME-WE” project

Young carers are children and adolescents who provide care to other family members or friends, taking over responsibilities that are usually associated with adulthood. There is emerging but still scarce knowledge worldwide about the phenomenon of young carers and the impact of a caring role on their health, social and personal development spheres. This paper provides an overview of the main results from the ME-WE project, which is the first European research and innovation project dedicated to adolescent young carers (AYCs) (15–17 years). The project methods relied on three main activities: (1) a systematization of knowledge (by means of a survey to AYCs, country case studies, Delphi study, literature review); (2) the co-design, implementation and evaluation of a primary prevention intervention addressing AYCs’ mental health (by means of Blended Learning Networks and a clinical trial in six European countries); (3) the implementation of knowledge translation actions for dissemination, awareness, advocacy and lobbying (by means of national and international stakeholder networks, as well as traditional and new media). Project results substantially contributed to a better understanding of AYCs’ conditions, needs and preferences, defined tailored support intervention (resilient to COVID-19 related restrictions), and significant improvements in national and European policies for AYCs