The project focuses on education if nursing students through innovative learning methods to intervene in multicultural contexts and with multicultural people. The project aims to educate the nursing students but extends its reach to the key-people in the health community and organizations, mentors and teachers. In Europe, a new approach in healthcare is needed to effectively face the growing prevalence of migratory flows, contributing to having in Europe minorities, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in clinical settings. The World Health Organization (2019) emphasized the importance of social inclusion of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, reinforcing the needs of the development of health professionals' skills in multicultural contexts. The development of these skills should be core components of professional education, training, certification, continuing education, and development, reinforcing the role played by academia in generating such knowledge and translating it into practice. Current reports from major European entities sustain the need for early training of healthcare students and training courses for the development of professionals in the scope of caring for minorities, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. The European health care services have the challenge to provide more and better quality care in multicultural contexts and to a multicultural people within the same resources. The only approach to achieve the main goal to provide proper care is through the development of health professionals' skills highlighting the role of nurses in this field, as essential to achieve these societal goals. However, higher education institutions of health professionals must integrate caring for minorities, migrants and asylum seekers courses and learning methods into their curriculum, so that students will be future-proof and act as ambassadors in clinical settings who strive for the provision of quality care. Therefore, the main objective of the MulticulturalCare project is to develop the MulticulturalCare Model for nursing education in caring for multicultural people and in multicultural contexts. It will be a generic model containing the organizational, educational and professional elements for the development of students’ competences in this field. In addition to the clinical recommendations of best practices in this field, the MulticulturalCare Model will be composed of a pedagogical dimension that will stimulate nursing students the need to think critically about the realities around them. It will be possible through the Simulation Scenarios about this thematic, which will be made freely available to students, teachers, and nurses in an E-book format as a didactic learning tool. The MulticulturalCare Model is reinforced by a community of teaching, students and professionals in the field of nursing, designated as the MulticulturalCare Community. The community serves as a platform to spread their achievements and exchange good practices in the field of nursing that aim to educate for proper care to minorities, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.
The MCCare project’s main objective was to promote high standard Multiculturalcare Education among nurses and health professionals in Europe, as an important strategy to address health inequalities, contributing to the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals (UN). The MulticulturalCare Project aimed to develop collaborative networks between HEI, healthcare institutions, and non-governmental institutions, increasing the capacity of higher education nursing institutions to operate transnationally, by sharing ideas, practices, and methods of nursing training in multicultural competencies. In order to achieve the goals of the Project, three intellectual outputs were designed, each of them serving its own purpose. The MCCare project aimed to fill the gap in training models by providing an evidence-based, pedagogically sound, and replicable approach that could be implemented in academic institutions and professional training programs.
This project carries a significant history, stemming from its origin in the refugee camp of Keratepe, Greece, back in 2018. It was during that time that the Project Coordinator, Ana Monteiro, found herself in the midst of a humanitarian mission to provide support to refugee children, operating within the NGO Platform for Refugee Support. At that particular juncture, Europe was grappling with a refugee crisis of immense proportions, primarily triggered by the war in Syria. Migration and displacement are complex social, political, and public health issues that affect countries worldwide, including the European Region. This Region hosts approximately 36% of the global migrant population, with over 13% of its total population consisting of international migrants. European healthcare services face the challenge of providing more and better-quality care to culturally diverse populations.WHO emphasizes the urgent need for the social inclusion of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, highlighting the importance of developing health professionals' skills in multicultural contexts. By prioritizing the development of an adaptable, well-trained, and culturally competent healthcare workforce, healthcare systems can improve their ability to deliver inclusive and patient-centered care. However, there is a gap in the availability of comprehensive and structured multicultural care training programs for nursing students.