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The AMiCO-Projekt
Due to demographic change in Western European societies, there is an increasing demand for personnel in the Elderly Care. This demand can only be covered by personnel from abroad. Due to the heterogeneity of vocational education systems in Europe the assessment of qualifications is quite difficult, hindering the professionals’ mobility. The Leonardo da Vinci Transfer of Innovation project “AMiCo – Assessment of Migrants’ Competences in the elderly care” aims at creating more transparency concerning the necessary competences in the field of care of the elderly as well as improving the assessment of formal, informal and non-formal acquired qualifications. These aims should be reached with the help of two tools that were developed within the project:
- an ICT based self assessment tool (AMiCo tool)
- a multilingual informational web page
The AMiCo tool will enable individuals to assess professionally relevant experiences and competences that were acquired formally, informally or non-formally. It will allow the identification of correspondences/discrepancies and will provide the individual users with recommendations regarding supplementary competences that should be acquired before migration. With questionnaires and exercises about hygiene, nutrition, mobilization, environment, first aid, communication, ethic and cultural sensitivity in the elderly care competences which are needed for elderly people in need of care are assessed. In a previous project called “Improving Qualification for Elderly Assistants – IQEA Evolution“ (Leonardo Development of Innovation, period 2010-2013, Project Nr. 510449-LLP-1-2010-1-IT-Leonardo-LMP) the above mentioned subject areas have already been analogically identified and formulated in the aspects of learning outcomes and credit points of ECVET (the European system for accumulation and transfer of credit points in vocational education and training).
The AMiCo tool delivers two documents:
• the first one confirms that every question of the test has been answered and contains a list of the competences the user already owns. This document for example can be added to the application portfolio
• the second document contains the existing qualifications in the selected target country, the competences that were registered and the maximum of ECVET points one can achieve with the AMiCo self assessment tool
These two documents however are no official certificates for a vocational qualification.
The users of the two tools (AMiCo-tool and AMiCo-homepage) get a first impression on the work in the field of eldery care in the other countries as well as on their existing competences so that they can compare them with the needed qualifications of the job market in the other countries involved in the project. Thus the tools offer an orientation for the decision to move to another country.
The AMiCo-tool and the AMiCo-homepage don’t only offer orientation and information on the jobmarket of the target country to potential care givers but also enable health care facilities, ambulant nursing services and placement agencies for nursing staff of the private elderly care to access an adequate employment of nursing staff based on their expertise and qualifications. The use of the AMiCo tools can of course also take place in educational and consultative institutions or be used by employers and in general by the actors of the job market (e.g jobcenter, Federal Institute for Employment).
For further information in German, English and French see ADAM – Projects and Products Portal for Leonardo da Vinci: