Project ELLAN - a good example of European collaboration in the area of health and social care education

Abstract

Introduction : During the last decades the population in Europe gets older and this puts forward a major challenge for the European society – the education of students in the area of health and social care for working with older people. This problem can be solved only with the combined efforts of all European countries. A good example of this is the project ELLAN - European Later Life Active Network – funded by the European Commission, with the participation of 26 universities from 25 countries ( http://ellan.savonia.fi/ ). Aim of ELLAN : Based on a number of studies carried out in different European countries and the expertise of professionals, to develop a European core competences framework for health and social care professionals working with older people. Material and methods : In order to outline the core competences, that a health and social care professional should have when working with older people, a number of studies had been carried out in the different European countries, participating in the ELLAN project. First, the scientific literature on this issue had been thoroughly studied, followed by studies of the opinion of the professionals, working with older people, the students in the field of health and social care and the older people themselves. The CanMEDS framework was used to define the core roles of the health and social care professionals. Results and discussion : Based on the studies carried out in different European countries, the seven core roles of the health and social care professionals working with older people were defined: Expert, Communicator, Collaborator, Organizer, Health and welfare advocate, Scholar and Professional. For each role competenies were defined, and for each competence the corresponding results are described. The Framework was verified by two rounds of Delphi research among a group of 21 experts and a group of 21 researches from different European countries. Conclusion : The main result of the ELLAN project is the development of the European Core Competences Framework for Health and Social Care Professionals Working with Older People. It is intended for the management of the universities and other institutions dealing with the education of health and social care professionals. This would not be possible if the ELLAN project, combining the efforts of 25 countries from the European region was not successful.