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C-Care - Covid Channel Area Response Exchange

Value of EU Grant - €6,737,507.06

Name of funded programme - Interreg 5A France Channel England Programme

Start and end dates - April 2021 to March 2023

C-Care was an ambition Interreg project which aimed to respond to some of the socio-economic challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. C-Care was built on some of the initiatives put in place to help businesses and individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. The partnership designed and delivered an innovative range of schemes to provide support to over 1,900 businesses and 4,500 individuals at risk of exclusion in the France-Channel England area to aid economic recovery.

This included:

  • activities on both sides of the Channel to help individuals gain new knowledge and skills to help with accessing employment, becoming self-employed or starting a business
  • direct support for businesses including advice, vouchers and grants aimed at helping sectors hard-hit by the pandemic to develop new business models to respond to market changes and new customer behaviour whilst ensuring a green, inclusive and sustainable economic recovery.

If you would like to find out more about the C-Care project, you can watch a full overview of the project on YouTube which has been created by Interreg C-Care.

C-Care have produced a number of toolkits, blueprints and case study videos that will remain available as a legacy.

Interreg C-Care logo

  • Kent County Council
  • New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership
  • Norfolk County Council
  • Plymouth City Council
  • Conseil Départemental du Finistère
  • Pas-de-Calais Tourisme
  • Campus d’Enseignement Supérieure et de Formation Professionnelle

C-Care aimed to respond to some of the socio-economic challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic with a particular focus on helping individuals at risk of exclusion from the labour market and helping businesses from some of the most impacted economic sectors to recover and grow.

  • More than 4,500 individuals receiving support to develop new skills and access new tools to help them into employment or start a business.
  • More than 1,900 businesses supported with developing new business models, digital skills and the ability to recover in a resilience, green and sustainable way.
  • A series of tools, models and visions to be adopted by communities and businesses on both sides of the Channel to consider new ways of living and working to ensure inclusive economic growth.

  • Implementation of a €400,000 ‘Technology Resilience’ voucher scheme to help small businesses in Kent to develop new digital capabilities or make digital adaptations to meet future customer demand.
  • Implementation of a €150,000 ‘Green Recovery’ voucher scheme to help small businesses in Kent to make changes to their operations to reduce their environmental impact.
  • Creation of a ‘COVID-secure’ accredited, Trading Standards-approved training programme for local trades companies to operate in a safe way in the future.
  • Actively participating in a variety of work strands on social inclusion, skills and employability, the future of town centres, green recovery and tackling digital poverty to ensure that Kent organisation can benefit from best practice and make changes to boost Kent’s socio-economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.