PROJECT’S REASONS AND MOTIVATIONS

The need for employment opportunities and training in the personal support and care sector

• In Europe, the health care and social services sector is very important for people, the economy and employment: it accounts for 5 – 13% of the GDP of Member States and provides jobs to approx. 20 million people (78% of people employed are women);
• the overall health care and personal support occupations, that interact with the residential care and community health clinic industries are but a portion of the “health care and kindred personnel” sub-category as identified at EU level, provides employment to the majority of workers in the sector (27%) and many among these are unskilled and often migrants;
• In accordance with EU forecasts, up to 2020 the demand for carer, health care and support services for the elderly, children and the weaker segments of the population, is bound to increase significantly especially in view of the predicted ageing of the European population and changes to current lifestyles;
• The complexity and diversification that will occur in the demand for services will result in the need for new occupational profiles and the ongoing upgrade of the skills of the existing personnel;
• Over recent times a number of European studies and papers including the latest  «New skills for new jobs dans le secteur de la santé et services sociaux» paper – have stressed the need to innovate training in the sector in line with the skills required by the labour market. And within this framework, the Commission has urged the Member States to update profiles, contents and methods
  

Mission of the Project Partners

The project partners have a specific competence within the community health training segment and, as per their mission, a priority focus on each initiative capable of enhancing occupation among the weaker segments of the labour market such as women, migrants, the unemployed and unskilled job seekers.

The Progress Program

As part of the European Employment Strategy, along with the invitation to submit proposals No. vs/2009/011, the Progress Program has made available to the sector operators a concrete opportunity of developing Good Practice sharing projects on the issue of “new skills for new jobs” in accordance with the Commission’s 2008 memo.  

GENERAL OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

As part of the 2009 Progress Program (Open call for proposals n°vp/2009/O11), 13 partners (both public and private) of 5 Member States have developed the «New skills for new jobs in the health care and social work sector» Project.
The Project’s purpose was to create shared approaches and procedures, which may be adapted and transferred in order to achieve the ongoing innovation and update of the occupational profiles and training pathways in the sub-sector of the help, care and support aimed at the elderly, dependent on help because of disability or other causes, and children, in accordance with the papers of the Commission on the subject of “new skills for new jobs” and with the jobs challenge at the centre of the European Employment Strategy.
In particular, the project had the specific objective of recording, thanks to the Good Practices put forward by the Partners, the innovation and profile update process (personal care and support occupational profiles, currently being tested as part of the partnership experience between public and private in certain areas of 5 Member States (Italy, France, Belgium, Rumania and Spain).
With a view to encouraging and making possible this innovation process also in the future, the Project provided for the development of an “Innovation Platform” for the submission of Good Practices, the shared creation of new profiles, the management of the updating of the sector operators’ skills in line with the development predictions and trends for the sector.
The tool that will make this process possible is this website.