Dementia is becoming one of the major causes of dependency among older people worldwide and the number of people suffering from dementia and needing care is constantly increasing. In many countries in Europe, this challenge is combined with the challenge of handling multi-culturality and multi-ethnicity among care staff, among the residents at care homes and the elderly receiving home care - and among the relatives of these. Care work is stressful and at the same time, having to manage different value systems based on different cultural backgrounds does not make it easier. In care work, the caregiver gets very close to the person in need of care, personal barriers are broken down and the caregiver enters the intimate sphere of the patient/the old person. It is important that the educations for caregivers are providing them with relevant and up-to-date training in order to prepare them for the above-mentioned challenges in the best possible way. In spite of the obvious need, in the existing basic educations, unfortunately, neither handling multicultural relations nor dementia are given high priority. The overall objective of our project is to contribute to the improvement of competences among teachers and trainers, who are educating and training basic care staff and to the improvement of competences among professional caregivers with regard to multi-ethnicity/multi-culturality and dementia. Another objective is to strengthen in general the cooperation between care work and care education, build new links and establish new permanent fora. The overall methodology is involvement of caregivers as co-developers of the training programs and tools we will develop for the sector. The eight project partners are representing education of caregivers and care giver organisations in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Latvia. The main target groups of AMiDE are: a) Teachers, trainers and educators teaching within care educations b) Students at care educations c) caregivers d) care organization leaders where employees and/or patients/residents/older people are of different ethnic backgrounds. However, other groups will also benefit from the results and the products of this project: relatives of elderly with a different ethnic background, especially – but not only - if they are suffering from dementia, volunteers working with elderly and of course the older people themselves. There are five Intellectual Outputs in the project: Workshops in each country with representatives from working place and education on practices related to the challenges of multi-ethnicity and multi-culturality in care in general and with a special view to the field of dementia. The workshops will give input to the development of two following outputs. Development of a training program/training course/training material based on the results of IO 1 and development of a Teachers'/trainers' guide. Development of a reflection tool for caregivers. Piloting of the training program and the reflection tool involving 80 persons from the partner countries Production of a video raising the awareness on, the understanding of and the interest in the challenge of multi-ethnicity in the care sector and specifically the challenges related to people suffering from dementia and having different ethnic backgrounds. The relevance and usability of the products that will be developed in this project, are ensured by the composition of the partnership with a partner from working life and a partner from education as partners from each participating country and the implementation of the project will lead to a required enhancement of competences among trainers, teachers and students in health care educations and among care staff, in relation to treatment of people with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and suffering from dementia . The establishment of permanent fora/channels/procedures will ensure that the exchange of experiences and continuous communication between education and work life will not end with the end of the project but will continue as permanent activities. The video that will be produces by the partnership will raise the awareness on and the understanding of the challenge of multi-ethnicity in the care sector and specifically the challenges related to people suffering from dementia and having different ethnic backgrounds.
By implementing the project, we wanted to contribute to the needed enhancement of competences among trainers, teachers and students in health care educations and among care staff, in relation to treatment of people with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and suffering from dementia. And thus, to contribute to improvement of the standard of caregiving in general, of caregiving to people suffering from dementia and but specifically of caregiving to people with dementia and a different cultural background than the caregiver's. With the production of the video we wanted to raise the awareness on and the understanding of the challenge of multi-ethnicity in the care sector and specifically the challenges related to people suffering from dementia and having different ethnic backgrounds. With the establishment of permanent fora/channels/procedures between work life and education we wanted to improve the constant exchange of experiences and continuous communication between education and work life. With the dissemination activities we wanted to spread our good intentions to as many as possible. Furthermore, we wanted to improve the quality of work life among caregivers and a better life to elderly with dementia and their relatives.
We applied for this project in order to address needs related to actual challenges that all partners in this project had experienced in their daily work. The main need was the need for improving the competences among present and future caregivers in the field of caregiving to persons, who at the same time are suffering from dementia AND have a cultural background that is different from the background of the professional caregiver. Caregiving in itself is difficult because you enter the intimate sphere of the person in need of care and get very close to him or her. It is generally recognized that caregiving to persons with dementia is even more challenging. However, all actors in the field of caregiving know that when one more challenge is added on top of the others, namely the aspect of multiculturality and multiethnicity, it becomes really difficult - often leaving the professional, the person in need of care and the relatives with a sense of powerlessness and frustration because you simply to not have the knowledge and the tools to handle the situation. Another need we wanted to address was the need to strengthen the cooperation and the common understanding between the work life and education in the field of care.
Dementia is becoming one of the major causes of dependency among older people worldwide and the number of people suffering from dementia and needing care is constantly increasing. In many countries in Europe, this challenge is combined with the challenge of handling multi-culturality and multi-ethnicity among care staff, among the residents at care homes and the elderly receiving home care - and among the relatives of these. Care work is stressful and at the same time, having to manage different value systems based on different cultural backgrounds does not make it easier. In care work, the caregiver gets very close to the person in need of care, personal barriers are broken down and the caregiver enters the intimate sphere of the patient/the old person. It is important that the educations for caregivers are providing them with relevant and up-to-date training in order to prepare them for the above-mentioned challenges in the best possible way. In spite of the obvious need, in the existing basic educations, unfortunately, neither handling multicultural relations nor dementia are given high priority. The overall objective of our project is to contribute to the improvement of competences among teachers and trainers, who are educating and training basic care staff and to the improvement of competences among professional caregivers with regard to multi-ethnicity/multi-culturality and dementia. Another objective is to strengthen in general the cooperation between care work and care education, build new links and establish new permanent fora. The overall methodology is involvement of caregivers as co-developers of the training programs and tools we will develop for the sector. The eight project partners are representing education of caregivers and care giver organisations in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Latvia. The main target groups of AMiDE are: a) Teachers, trainers and educators teaching within care educations b) Students at care educations c) caregivers d) care organization leaders where employees and/or patients/residents/older people are of different ethnic backgrounds. However, other groups will also benefit from the results and the products of this project: relatives of elderly with a different ethnic background, especially – but not only - if they are suffering from dementia, volunteers working with elderly and of course the older people themselves. There are five Intellectual Outputs in the project: Workshops in each country with representatives from working place and education on practices related to the challenges of multi-ethnicity and multi-culturality in care in general and with a special view to the field of dementia. The workshops will give input to the development of two following outputs. Development of a training program/training course/training material based on the results of IO 1 and development of a Teachers'/trainers' guide. Development of a reflection tool for caregivers. Piloting of the training program and the reflection tool involving 80 persons from the partner countries Production of a video raising the awareness on, the understanding of and the interest in the challenge of multi-ethnicity in the care sector and specifically the challenges related to people suffering from dementia and having different ethnic backgrounds. The relevance and usability of the products that will be developed in this project, are ensured by the composition of the partnership with a partner from working life and a partner from education as partners from each participating country and the implementation of the project will lead to a required enhancement of competences among trainers, teachers and students in health care educations and among care staff, in relation to treatment of people with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and suffering from dementia . The establishment of permanent fora/channels/procedures will ensure that the exchange of experiences and continuous communication between education and work life will not end with the end of the project but will continue as permanent activities. The video that will be produces by the partnership will raise the awareness on and the understanding of the challenge of multi-ethnicity in the care sector and specifically the challenges related to people suffering from dementia and having different ethnic backgrounds.