ERASMUS + Programme - Sector Skills Alliances 2015

CARESS: seCtor skills for elderly home care - An integRatEd framework for domiciliary healthcare SkillS development
ERASMUS + Programme - Sector Skills Alliances 2015 (evaluation results expected for August 2015)
Coordinator: SI4LIFE (Italy)

Demographic ageing is one of the most serious challenges Europe is facing. Better care and sustainability of health services calls for innovative ways to address the needs of the elderly. Supporting homecare, i.e. care provided by professionals within users’ own homes, has been identified by EC as a possible solution.
Although an high number of elderly and their families are searching for skilled practitioners they often have to face a mismatch between the skills they are asking for and those offered by job-seekers. The CARESS project will target this skill mismatch in order to overcome it.
The project addresses this scope by adopting an innovative approach to Vocational Education and Training (VET) design and implementation. An initial analysis of the context of elderly homecare will be carried out in the three countries involved in the project and at European level in order to identify:
-    existing elderly Home Health Care Practitioners (HHCPs) and their respective skills and roles;
-    existing curricula, VET and career pathways concerning HHCPs.
Learning outcomes of existing curricula and VET pathways will be mapped against competency needs referring to ESCO, ECVET and EURES in order to define skills and training provision needs in the field of homecare.
Information gathered through the initial analysis of the context will be organized and systematized in a EU framework for VET in the field of homecare. Than national pilots will be designed and implemented in 3 countries, targeting different HCCPs, allowing for the validation of the framework. Pilots will include different educational methods and will be based both on formal (presence learning an e-learning) and on non-formal/informal learning
The CARESS Consortium will include 11 full partners from Italy, Spain and Finland and an umbrella organization. Three associated partners from Italy and UK will provide contributions and feedbacks to the project.