The “Presence of Family: (Re)Integrating Essential Care Partners in Ontario’s LTC Homes” project will help to develop and disseminate an intervention to allow family members (who are chosen by the resident and who provide them with physical/psycho-social care) to have safe access to the LTC home. We will work with three Ontario LTC homes to implement an intervention that combines training with a commitment to follow safety protocols and use ID badges, and facilitates greater access for essential care partners to the home. We will use developmental evaluation, a rapid scoping review, an economic analysis of the value of the care provided by family members, and a mixed methods outcome evaluation. To spread the learning from this work, we will convene an Advisory Board that includes members from participating LTC homes, family members, and other stakeholders. 

The research will be completed by December 2021 and expected outputs are: 

1. An understanding of how do residents, essential care partners, and healthcare providers experience the implementation of the intervention in 3 participating LTC homes, including: 

• Identification of factors that facilitate or impede implementation. 
• Determination if experiences differentiated by sex, gender or other aspects of diversity. 
• Identification of factors related to sex, gender or other aspects of diversity. 

2. Identification of outcomes and effects that can be attributed to the intervention in the three homes, and inferences drawn from the evidence to explain these outcomes and impacts. 
3. Identification of features (processes, tools, training, supports) of an effective implementation process for the intervention that could be scaled/spread to other Ontario and Canadian LTC homes, including any special consideration that needs to be drawn to gender roles, gender identity, gender relations and institutional gender/diversity elements that influence implementation. 
4. A set of final outputs to support the scale and spread of the intervention, including:

• A “business case” based on the results of the economic analysis 
• An Essential Care Partner Implementation Guide that presents an optimized version of the processes used to implement the intervention, with supporting tools available through one of our partner’s websites 
• A minimum of three webinars sharing learnings and allowing participants to action plan and form relationships 
• Publications and presentations made through available and relevant academic channels