Care4Skills is a European Erasmus+ collaborative project aimed at addressing the training needs in Long-Term Care and establishing a European training strategy with common curricula

(2024-2027)

The Care4Skills project promotes a new strategic approach to enhance the skills and retraining of professional caregivers in the Long-Term Care sector. Through cross-sectoral collaboration among actors from various European countries, with a special focus on elderly care and disability support, the project aims to improve the quality of services and facilitate the digital transition in this field of social intervention. The initiative is supported by the European Union through the Erasmus+ program and will be developed over a four-year period.

Care4Skills is led by EASPD (European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities) and brings together 6 European platforms and national actors from 10 countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain). The key player in Spain is the iSocial Foundation. The consortium includes both Long-Term Care providers and vocational training providers, as well as higher education institutions and certification bodies. The main goal of the collaboration is to address two priority competence areas for the sector: person-centered skills and digital skills.

Systematizing Long-Term Care Training

In the first year, the project plans to develop a training program to address the sector’s most urgent training needs, training 1500 frontline workers in Long-Term Care. This program will be based on an updated version of the MOOC that awards the European Care Certificate, a European qualification that provides the basic knowledge needed to work in the social and health care sector. Additionally, it will gather information on future training needs and develop a standardized methodology to anticipate and monitor these needs.

Care4Skills will not only improve the skills of professional caregivers but also develop new modular vocational training curricula, which will be piloted in the 10 participating countries. As a result of this research process, the project also plans to create European and national certifications and develop a European strategy for Long-Term Care skills, ensuring the project’s impact continues after its completion.

Evaluation of the Training Program

In this context, iSocial Foundation’s role within the project will be to adapt, implement, and evaluate the training program in Spain. To accomplish this task, iSocial Foundation will analyze the Long-Term Care sector in Spain, identifying the existing and necessary skills and competences, and diagnosing the gaps that exist.

Furthermore, it will study the trends in the Long-Term Care sector, defining both the current scenarios with characteristics familiar to the sector and the emerging and innovative elements, thus being able to project probable future scenarios that could accelerate the sector’s transformation.

Care4Skills aligns with the European Commission’s ambition to evaluate and enhance the skills of professional caregivers, with a special emphasis on digital skills and person-centered care. The project follows the guidelines set by the European Care Strategy (September 2022) and the Pact for Skills (“Large-scale Skills Partnership for Long-Term Care,” April 2023), and aims to address the challenges posed by both the sector’s evolution and the rapid social transformation and aging population.