Cultural Awareness for Minority Elders

About Ca-Me

CA-ME 2010-2012

Improvement of Life Quality of Ethnic Minority Elders within health, nursing and social care in Europe through diversity competence.

Following the successful completion of the CA-ME project at the end of 2009, new partners from Poland, Italy and Romania have joined with existing partners from Norway, France, Germany and the UK to extend and consolidate the CA-ME network. The new team will work together on an 24-month programme in which we will continue to support and promote vocational training focused on heightening cultural awareness and improving the care of older people from ethnic minority and immigrant communities in Europe. We plan to share the materials developed in the first CA-ME project and test them out in our different national contexts. The project will facilitate contact between teachers and trainers involved in vocational training in health and social care in the partner countries, bringing them together to learn from one another, to share good practice and develop the training tools and materials further to ensure they are relevant to the different situations and experiences that are found across the partnership. As with the original CA-ME project, our objective is to increase skills in the care of older people from ethnic minority and immigrant communities in order to positively influence their well-being and quality of life.

CA-ME 2010-2012 is a Leonardo partnership project co-financed by the European Commission in the frame of the Lifelong Learning Program.

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CA-ME 2007-2009

Aims

This project has involved seven partners representing four countries in Europe (France, Germany, Norway and the UK). It has addressed the need to develop more culturally-sensitive service provision in the health and social care sector in response to the growing number of older people from ethnic minority communities resident in Europe, to ensure that equality and excellence of service is delivered to all. The project has improved vocational training systems and practices within the health and care sector, including food provision, through developing training tools and modules for use with students and qualified staff.

Background

The sector has not yet adapted sufficiently to changing family structures, migration and demography that mean the proportion of ethnic minority elders needing health and social services will increase dramatically in the coming years. While the sector aims to provide equal access and service standards for all who use its services, cross-cultural competence and knowledge of how to provide culturally-sensitive care have been insufficiently developed, either in the education systems or through further training of employees in the sector.

Objectives

The objective is to enhance skills through training modules for students and staff involved in the daily care of minority ethnic elders – care assistants, auxiliary nurses and kitchen staff. The project focuses on both in- service training at the workplace as well as at vocational schools/colleges. It builds upon surveys and practical experiences from different countries, especially from the United Kingdom where there is a long tradition of migration, and from Norway, where much has been done to meet the needs of Sàmi elders from the indigenous population. In order to achieve the aims of equal service excellence, both students and staff need training/education that raises their empathy and cultural awareness and improves their knowledge about traditions, (religious, food, cultural) and gives them basic language tools to be able to communicate with those who use their services. The project aims to use existing materials and adapt them to develop a tool-kit that can be used in teaching/training at colleges, at in-service training, distance courses or as self-study materials for the benefit of the different end users.

Target groups

The target groups are colleges/vocational training schools/organisations and health and care institutions in Europe. The target sector is health and social care providers, like nursing homes, home-service offices, day-centres and hospitals. The final users are students and employees in the health, nursing and care sector in Europe, including kitchen personnel. The method, the core module and parts of the other materials will also be transferable to other European countries as well as to other institutions or workplaces (e.g. employment authorities, prisons) that work with people from ethnic minorities and where the focus on culture awareness and culturally-sensitive service is important.