Previous research found that healthcare staff were poorly prepared to meet older persons with a migration background (e.g. National Board of Health and Welfare 2015, Cicolini et al. 2015) and that nursing students did not receive adequate training in this regard during the nursing education (Repo et al. 2017, Safipour et al. 2017). This concerns health care in general but even more specific age-related diseases such as dementia: for example under diagnosis and late diagnosis of dementia are more widespread among people with a migration background than in people without a migration background (Seven 2015) while many service providers have limited knowledge about the specific care situation of people with migration background (Höfler et al. 2015).
On the other hand, partners are all organizations working around the issue of person-centered, diversity-sensitive care, either from an academic, policy or practice level, and they recognize that they are currently lacking adequate pedagogical tools to provide an updated and effective training to health and social care professionals around this issue as well as evidences to support policy recommendations in this field and that further work is needed in this regard.
The project will address these needs by
Developing, testing and disseminating a training programme that includes teaching methods as workshops, supervision and coaching, reflective exercises, internships, simulations and work in group.
Developing, piloting and disseminating an open educational resources (workbook) based on the same topics to make the training contents widely accessible to students and professionals around Europe.
Developing a set of policy recommendations for the national and European stakeholders and policy makers to improve the quality of healthcare for older persons with migrant backgrounds and their families/informal carers in Europe starting from improved competences of health and social care professionals.