Building a user-friendly learning platform User Requirement Analysis

The MiCare project is developing a Training Package for migrants who wish to work as caregivers for the elderly and people with care needs. The comprehensive training package will include courses in Caregiving, Language and Skills Enhancement.

Once developed, the training package will be available online, through a comprehensive platform, containing both exercises for self-learning and additional exercises and case studies that can be implemented with the help of trainers. 

In order

to develop an online-platform and mobile application that satisfies the needs of end-users, the MiCare project is conducting a user requirements analysis to help understand the requirements of the end-users for all the different functionalities of the platform.

The analysis is conducted through questionnaires and interviews. If you would like to help in the development of the MiCare platform please complete one of the questionnaires below:

Questionnaire for migrants:

https://forms.gle/aWS3KjTv4jP2rSPL7 

 

Questionnaire for trainers:

https://forms.gle/iZcbgvLoeCo4ncpZ8 

After the completion of the training package, a Train the Trainers event will take place in order to present the training package and provide basic training and guidelines to trainers.

Follow MiCare project on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MiCareProject/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/micareproject 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/micareproject/ 

Covid-19 and Caregiving in Europe

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised questions about the resilience of health and care systems across the world and about how they can better prepare for future threats. 

In several countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, those living in care homes have been at particular risk (Legido-Quigley, Mateos-García et al. 2020, Rajan, Comas-Herrera et al. 2020). 

Looking across health systems, we can see some common challenges related to the delivery and organization of care. Social care facilities, unprepared for protecting residents and struggling to obtain support from authorities, recorded a surge in infections and mortality.

This raises the question of how healthcare provision can be sustained for vulnerable groups, including the elderly and people with care needs. 

Elderly people are the most vulnerable in terms of the consequences of a potential COVID-19 infection. At the same time, they are also a vulnerable group in terms of the impact of measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19, as social isolation can be an important health concern for this group. 

The responses to COVID-19 may represent an opportunity for innovation and adaptation of medical and care training with the aim of protecting vulnerable groups. Given that COVID-19 could well become a part of our life, health and care systems need to be adapted to the new reality and caregivers of the elderly need to be able to provide them with the vital help they need without compromising their health. 

The MiCare project aims to develop a detailed training package for migrants to work as caregivers for the elderly and people with care needs. Taking into consideration the COVID-19 pandemic, the State of the Art Analysis implemented in order to uncover the needs of migrants wishing to work as caregivers involved the investigation of whether migrants feel comfortable working during the pandemic, whether they feel able to protect themselves and the people their care for and also if they know how to help vulnerable people cope during a pandemic in terms of social support and stress-management. 

The training package currently being developed will focus on the results of the State of the Art analysis mentioned above, showing the importance of adapting to new realities. 

Learn more about the MiCare project: https://www.facebook.com/MiCareProject  https://twitter.com/micareproject   

Read the Opinion on the organisation of resilient health and social care following the COVID-19 pandemic: https://bit.ly/2K3juEU

Migration as a tool for addressing labour shortages

 

According to Eurostat, the share of people aged 80 years or more should more than double by 2100 to reach 14.6% of the whole population. Specifically, people over 65 years or over will account for 31.3 % of the EU-28’s population by 2100, compared with 19.8 % in 2018. 

The ageing of the population in the EU will most-likely result in shortages in the labour market; the Synthesis Report on “Determining labour shortages and the need for labour migration from third countries in the EU” states that the shortage of workers with relevant qualifications constitutes a major challenge for European competitiveness and is only expected to increase in the future. 

In the above-mentioned report, two different approaches are mentioned to linking economic migration to labour market shortages. The first-one is a ‘demand-driven’ approach that grants admission to migrants seeking employment in occupations with a previously identified shortage. This approach normally requires third-country nationals to have a specific job offer by a national employer before their application for a residence permit will be considered. 

For the second approach, the admission frameworks are adjusted to attract migrants with characteristics that will place them in a favourable position for the labour market and policy tools are required to attract migrants with transferable skills or other qualities (e.g. investment potential) deemed desirable for the economy without making special efforts to link these migrants to pre-defined shortage occupations. 

While some Member States have adopted one of the aforementioned approaches or a combination of the two, other EU countries do not have a strategic vision of labour migration as a tool for addressing labour shortages (CY, CZ, HU, LT, LU, NL, SK) as they consider the link between economic migration and addressing labour shortages to be indirect, leaving the admission of third-country nationals for employment to individual employers who can choose to employ TCNs often after looking for national or EU candidates first.

The MiCare project aims to develop an intensive training program for migrants wishing to work as caregivers for elder people and people with special needs to facilitate the TCNs integration in the EU labour market of host countries and help cover labour shortages now and in the future.

Learn more about the MiCare project: https://www.facebook.com/MiCareProject https://twitter.com/micareproject 

Read the Synthesis Report Synthesis Report on Determining labour shortages and the need for labour migration from third countries in the EU: https://bit.ly/2Etca2r