Grandis XXI. – Vocational Education for Interprofessional Elderly Care in the 21st century

The European Commission describes ageing as one of the greatest social and economic challenges of the 21st century for European societies. In 2014, the proportion of persons aged 65 or over reached 18.5% in the EU and it is projected to increase to almost 30% by 2080. These challenges do not only involve health and social-care systems but all economic sectors, including education.  

In recent years, there has been a huge amount of investment in developing ICT-based tele-care systems. However, there is a gap in ICT literacy among the stakeholders hindering the take-up of innovative tools. Stakeholders are increasingly aware of the potential impact of ICT on home care services, and they agree that the use of ICT technologies (such as tele-care tools) could provide better quality of life to elderly people living at home. However digital competence is not yet considered essential for caregivers in their daily work, by the experts who design caregiver job profiles, curricula and training programmes.

Due to demographic changes, social care institutions face great difficulty in providing appropriate institutional services for the increasing number of elderly people. At the same time, there is a growing demand for supporting elderly people in their own homes for as long as possible, promoting active independent living and well-being. More ICT based tele-care systems are being developed to accommodate the demand but there is a general lack of competence for using them effectively, which is a barrier to their widespread adoption. There are a number of contributing problems:

• there is no appropriate learning content in the vocational training programmes for health and social care to inform students of changes in population age profiles and care needs;
• in ageing societies, it is important to consider keeping older people at work for economic sustainability but businesses are not prepared for this;
• health and social care vocational training programs do not cover ICT based tele-care systems (EIP-AHA), and modules for developing advanced digital competencies for managing eHealth systems are limited;
• vocational and HE curricula do not contain necessary information on the potential of virtual networks in social care and do not develop necessary ICT skills needed for establishing and facilitating virtual communities, despite their potential to prevent mental and physical deterioration of ageing persons living alone.

GRANDIS XXI. project aims to develop a competence-based, modular training programme (competence map, curriculum and learning materials) for formal and informal caregivers. It will empower them with advanced health literacy and tailored digital competencies, with special ICT skills in using eHealth technologies like smart devices, social alarms, wristbands, and special tele-diagnostic tools installed in the home. They will be able to manage, mentor and facilitate activities of elderly people in virtual communities through using ICT-based communication and online learning tools.

The training programme will be delivered in blended form, and have the potential to be incorporated as a part of advanced studies in the formal education programs of secondary and high-school students of the health and social sectors.

Target groups

• students of vocational education
• formal caregivers, care workers
• informal caregivers involved in the long-term-care of their relatives
• „young” elderly people retired from related professions (e.g. teachers), who are interested in working as informal caregivers in online communities.
   

Intellectual outputs - planned activities

IO-1: National state-of-art reports and needs-analysis for appropriate VET (Aston)

IO-2: Competence map and Curriculum for developing digital skills of 21^st Century caregivers (ICS)

IO-3 Grandis XXI. Course book – learning content in modules (EN, HU)

IO-4 Online eLearning platform with Course Components (EN, HU)

IO-5 Business model for a sustainable training programme accredited in the Hungarian VET System

Supporting activities: Project and Quality Management, Dissemination

Partners:

P1 PROMPT-H INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EDUCATIONAL, TRADE AND SERVICE LTD. Hungary
P2 SZÁMALK-Szalézi Post-Secondary Vocational School, Hungary
P3 Öveges József Post-Secondary Vocational School of Vocational Centre Veszprém, Hungary
P4 Universidad Europea de Madrid SL, Spain
P5 Aston University, United Kingdom
P6 The Irish Computer Society, Ireland
P7 GUIMEL Training, Innovation and Consulting Company, France
P8 Corvus Adult Educational Provider Ltd. Hungary HU

Project details:

Project title: GRANDIS XXI: Vocational Education for Interprofessional Elderly Care of the 21st century

Programme: ERASMUS

Type: Strategic Partnership

Duration: 01.10.2016-30.06.2019.

Participant countries: Hungary, UK, Ireland, France, Spain

Transfer of innovation: the project aims to exploit advanced knowledge and results in the development of skills and competences of social caregivers in the 21^st century. Direction of the transfer: from UK, IE, FR, ES into Hungary.

Horizontal priority: Open and innovative education, training and youth work, embedded in the digital era. Priority will be given to actions that contribute to disseminating lessons learned from best practice in formal and informal training with an emphasis on synergy between education, research and innovation activities. Outcomes will include the digitisation of quality learning content and promoting the use of ICT as a driver for systemic changes that increase the quality and relevance of training programmes for social care-givers.

Field: vocational education

Field specific priority:

Further strengthening key competences in VET curricula and providing more opportunities to acquire or develop those skills through I-VET and C-VET.

Contact: edu@prompt.hu