Care Services: According to a study published in 2008 by the World Health Organization about “Home Car in Europe”, the demand for care services will increase due to the ageing society, fragmentation of traditional families, and the trend to a more user oriented service. “However, there is a growing concern of global shortage in the supply of home care workers. Trends indicate that, (…) the crisis will increase in the future. Immigrants are seen as a plausible answer to this problem”, (WHO: Home Care in Europe, p. 11). However, most of the migrant caregivers “are not licensed and work outside the oversight of regulatory bodies, and concerns about the quality of care have thus been raised.” (ibid.). Therefore, WHO advices policy makers and care service providers to (better) qualify these migrants, in order to minimize the share of irregular workers and compensate the educational and social disadvantages of migrants employed in the care sector. MAIN OBJECTIVES: Enhancing quality of caregiving and employment conditions of migrants in the Home/Residential Care Service Sector SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: raise awareness - of the social and labour conditions of disadvantaged migrants; - of the shortage of qualified caregivers; - enhance the skills of VET providers for training low-qualified migrants TARGET GROUPS: VET providers and trainers, migrant tutors, migrants, Home/Residential Care Service providers, stakeholders in healthcare and migrant policy PARTNERS: The project Consortium is comprised out of 6 partners from 5 European countries: VET providers for adult training from the Basque Country, Germany, Italy, Greece and UK. All together, they bring experience in training migrants and refugees, in providing care service trainings, in detecting structural barriers at the labour market. ACTIVITIES in the project are: to collaborate with care service providers in order to deliver the outputs; to engage with stakeholders in order to raise awareness of the need for training migrants; to exchange with other partners on best practice experience in training migrants; The tangible results of the project are: Training Toolkit for migrants in the Home and Residential Care Service Sector (approx 40h training material): The training material will contain different modules: SKILLS ASSESSMENT TOOLS for Recognition/Validation strategies of skills acquired through informal and non-formal and foreign formal learning/workplace experience relevant to the Care Sector; Empowerment Workshop tools. TECHNICAL and CULTURAL training tools for migrants in the Home/Residential Care Service Sector(e.g. National Health Care System, Role of Care Worker, Basic human body and common conditions) and aspects of intercultural communication: verbal/non verbal communication, relation and attitude towards elderly patients, respect of private space. Online WORK-BASED LANGUAGE COURSE for training useful vocabulary and sentences based on real-life work situations PILOTING: Through the piloting, the project will train 50 migrants, who will test the training material, with the expected impact that they enhance their competence and knowledge in caregiving, receive their individual skills portfolio and access to the validation and recognition process for certifying their skills and competences; progress towards higher qualifications in Care giving; make first workplace experience; will gain confidence and self esteem. Online HANDBOOK for Care Service Providers about recruiting process (legal procedure, work permit/residency permit, procedure to certify foreign work experience etc.), including Success stories / best practice examples of successful job integration to find practical and reliable information on what works (and what doesn’t) METHODOLOGY: peer approach for exchanging work experience and work collaboratively on the delivery of the Outputs, to review the Toolkit content and identify errors or mistakes, to document the lessons learned during the project implementation phase. IMPACT: In a whole, the project improves the labour integration of low-qualified migrants and their economic and social situation and enhances the quality of the care that elderly people are receiving. On a long term view, the project results will be of importance for fighting the social crisis in the healthcare service and the migrant crisis in the European societies.
The EU and many other countries in the world have been heavily affected by the Pandemic. One reason why the Covid-19 virus did cause so much harm to the European societies is the constant labour shortage in the care service sector. Indeed, it took a global lockdown to realize that care is embedded in every aspect of our life. Unlike the mainstream capitalism ideas, the functioning of social cohesion and of our economies is depending heavily on care. However, those who are working currently in the care sector have been among the lowest paid workers, and the majority of care workers caring for the elderly are migrant caregivers, who “are not licensed and sometimes work outside the oversight of regulatory bodies, and concerns about the quality of care have thus been raised.” (WHO, 2008: “Home Care in Europe). Therefore, WHO advises policy makers and care service providers to (better) qualify these migrants, in order to minimize the share of irregular workers and compensate for the educational and social disadvantages of migrants employed in the care sector. MAIN OBJECTIVES: Enhancing the employability skills, employment conditions and quality of care of migrants in the Home/Residential Care Service Sector SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: raise awareness - of the social and labor conditions of migrant care workers; - of the shortage of qualified caregivers; - enhance the skills of VET providers for training low-qualified migrants PARTICIPANTS: 243 VET providers and trainers, 118 migrant organizations, 33 migrants, 88 Home/Residential Care Service providers, 574 stakeholders of healthcare, migrant and labor policy PARTNERS: The project Consortium comprised 6 partners from 5 European countries: VET providers for adult training from the Basque Country, Germany, Italy, Greece and UK. All together, they brought experience in training migrants and refugees, in providing care training, in detecting structural barriers at the labor market. ACTIVITIES in the project were: to collaborate with care service and training providers in order to deliver the outputs; to engage with stakeholders in order to raise awareness of the need for training migrants; to exchange with other partners on best practice experience in training migrants, The tangible results of the project were: - TRAINING TOOLKIT for migrants in the Home and Residential Care Service Sector: Skills Assessment tools (e.g. Personal and Professional Development; Applying for Jobs and Interviews; Employment Rights and Responsibilities), training tools in different care aspects such as: the Role of the Care Worker, Communication in Adult Care Settings, Body Systems and Common Conditions with Aging and cultural bias (e.g. in working relationships; cultural differences in communication, well-being and respecting individual choices, respect of private space) are part of the Toolkit in different units. The Toolkit also contains a qualification description based on the ECVET methodology that describes the Learning Outcomes of the training material on EQF Level1 in 11 Units. - Online WORK-BASED LANGUAGE COURSE for training useful vocabulary and sentences based on real-life work situations placed on a Moodle platform. - ONLINE HANDBOOK for Care Service Providers with information and a set of question to guide through the recruiting process of migrants (legal procedure, work permit/residency permit, procedure to certify foreign work experience etc.) for each partner country, placed on the project webpage - COUNTRY SPECIFIC ANALYSIS on the structure of healthcare systems of partner countries - SUCCESS STORIES and GOOD PRACTICE EXAMPLES that focus on the training background of migrants, on handling discrimination at workplace and on resolving language/communication problems - research of partners on the impact of Pandemic on migrant care workers and labour shortage in the care sector METHODOLOGY: peer approach for exchanging work experience and work collaboratively on the delivery of the Outputs, review of the Toolkit content and identification of mistakes, in-depth exchange on structure of care services and migrant issues, IMPACT: The project raised awareness about the need for tailored training and the access to qualifications for migrant care workers, in order to promote the legal employment of migrant care workers and enhance their quality of caregiving. On a long term view, the project results are of importance for fighting the labour crisis in the healthcare service and the migrant crisis in the European societies. All results are available on the project webpage: www.migrantstakecare.eu