DrawCare Dementia Care Films: A Multilingual, Culturally Inclusive Breakthrough in Dementia Care Support

The DrawCare resource, developed by La Trobe University in Australia.
Photograph: La Trobe University

In a world growing more culturally diverse and digitally connected, the need for accessible, inclusive, and culturally sensitive dementia care support has never been more urgent.

The DrawCare resource, developed by La Trobe University in Australia, represents a major step forward in addressing this need. Featuring a suite of short animations and tip-sheets, DrawCare is a thoughtful, evidence-informed digital tool that offers essential guidance to carers of people living with dementia, particularly those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Transforming the dementia support landscape

Launched in March 2025, DrawCare is freely available online and has already begun transforming the dementia support landscape. It brings together multilingual accessibility, cultural tailoring, evidence-based guidance, and user-friendly design. In this blog I reflect on the strengths of DrawCare and explores why it deserves recognition as a model for inclusive dementia support.

DrawCare is a digital education and support resource that delivers key dementia care messages through animated videos, each just a few minutes long, accompanied by practical one-page tip-sheets. It’s currently available in ten languages: English, Arabic, Cantonese, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, Tamil, and Vietnamese. This ensures it speaks directly to carers across communities, many of whom are often overlooked when it comes to health education.

A co-design approach means the final product meets real-world needs

The team behind DrawCare worked closely with carers, clinicians, and advocacy groups like Dementia Australia and the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia. Their co-design approach means the final product meets real-world needs and reflects the lived experiences of families and carers supporting and living with people with dementia. Because the project is also rooted in strong research and practical care models, it carries the confidence of best practice.

DrawCare does something more than simply translate existing advice. It adapts each piece of content with cultural nuance, using familiar names, expressions, customs, and scenarios that really resonate. That makes a big difference. It’s like sitting down with someone who understands your home, your language, and your values. That familiarity encourages trust, and trust helps people actually use the resource, not just bookmark it for later.

The animations are brief, engaging, and story-driven. They make tough subjects easier to understand without overwhelming the viewer. The tip-sheets reinforce those messages, and the whole website is designed to be welcoming, easy to use on a phone, with clear fonts and helpful navigation. There's even a virtual assistant that guides you through the content in a supportive way, making it feel like a knowledgeable friend is walking you through some of the harder parts of being an unpaid carer.

Unpaid carers reported feeling more empathetic, more confident in their approach

Although a clinical trial involving 116 carers didn’t show statistically significant changes in burden, the stories from the participants say otherwise. Unpaid carers reported feeling more empathetic, more confident in their approach, and more aware of their own wellbeing. Those aren’t minor achievements. They're the kind of shifts that make the unpaid caring role more sustainable and humane.

Being free to use and available online, DrawCare can reach people wherever they are. Its existing language coverage already supports communities across continents, and there’s great potential for expanding it even further. In lower-resource settings or communities where dementia is still heavily stigmatised, DrawCare could open new doors—both for understanding the condition and for finding support.

What makes DrawCare so special is that it feels deeply human. It’s more than a set of videos and PDFs. It’s an invitation to learn and care in a way that honours both the person living with dementia and the unpaid carer looking after them. The animations aren’t preachy or clinical—they tell small, familiar stories that reflect real family life. Watching them, I felt seen. That’s no small thing.

More than just another tool

At the Dementia Trust, we believe DrawCare is more than just another tool. It’s a thoughtfully made, generously shared resource that could benefit unpaid carers far beyond its original Australian audience. Hats off to the team who made it. My own life feels a bit richer having spent time with this resource.

If being an unpaid carer is a journey, then DrawCare is a guide written in many languages, showing a more compassionate and inclusive path forward.