Good practices

TENDER4LIFE – Tenderness for Life

Tender4Life is a project which started in 2018 and it aims to promote development of low skilled adults working in elderly care settings, through a humanistic approach that will be included in a complementary and alternative curriculum.

In this way, it is predictable that care providers have the opportunity to implement a set of tools to enhance professional qualification of low-level elderly care workers. It is also predictable that professionals who implement the Tender4Life approach will increase their competences that can directly influence their self-esteem, so at the end they will feel more motivation in their professional role, since they will have the adequate qualification and training to deal with contemporary situations.

Tender4Life had the main goal to develop a mixed training approach that highlights a person-centered approach and high-quality and technical skills, as interpersonal and digital skills. It combines a work-based learning and practical exercises.

It is also important to reinforce that, according to World Health Organization (WHO), personal-centred approaches are related to more positive outcomes in clinical terms and improved cost-effectiveness. In this way, it is possible to affirm that Tender4Life is an initiative that supports the pressure felt in EU welfare systems for social and health care.

Year(s): 2018 - 2021

Target group(s): Elderly care workers

Website or other online channels: https://www.tender4life-project.org/

Methodology

The initiative started with the development of an Elderly care worker new job profile and competences tool, which is a framework that includes exercises to measure and to evaluate the performance and level of proficiency of these professionals.

In this way, this tool will bring the opportunity for care providers analyse and manage training, support and supervision needs of their collaborators.

The project also developed a b-learning course for elderly care workers, with learning materials to promote interpersonal skills and awareness of these professionals in terms of caring for older people with dignity. It is important to highlight that the training action took into consideration the actual challenges faced by an ageing population.

Finally, the project predicted the development of a Good Practices Guide, based on the experiences and results retrieved from the previous outputs (the competence tool and the training action for elderly care workers). This guide also includes practical information about these resources, namely on how to use the assessment tool and how to implement the training action.

Type of product

Online resource Course / Training

Brief description of the outcomes

Tender4Life partnership worked on the development of 3 main products during the project lifetime. The first product that was created was a competence tool framework with exercises that provide information about the performance and skills of elderly care workers. The second product was a b-learning course for elderly care workers to promote interpersonal skills related to person-centered ways of care, humanistic approach, ethics of care or relationship-based care. The last product that was developed was a Guide with good practices, drawn from previous outputs and piloting, and that contains practical information on how to use the assessment tool and training to introduce humanistic care.

Impact on target groups / Transferability potential

Participants from the pilot actions were more aware about the importance in implementing effective practices in elderly care, about the concepts and also about themselves, in their role of caring of elderly people. It was also possible to understand that participants changed their perception, since they mentioned that feel more aware about human being dignity, they improved the way they stare people and their attention to the care provided to older people.

These are positive results that will raise the quality of care provided to elderly people and it represents a good opportunity since organizations can deliver the training actions with their own professionals.

Promoter of the initiative: Anzianie Non Solo Societa Cooperativa Sociale

Country: Italy

Languages available: English Finnish Italian Portuguese Romanian