ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1621071
This article is part of the Research TopicUnveiling the Mental Health Impact of Physical Decline in Older Adults: A Holistic ApproachView all 10 articles
Educational offer in elder home care for migrant family care assistants: results from a multiple qualitative case study
Provisionally accepted
Sara Santini1
Vanessa Frontalini1*
Georgia Casanova1
Serena Cancellieri1Daniela Grignoli2Antonella Golino2Veronica Moretti3Riccardo Pronzato3
Ilaria Chirico3
Rabih Chattat3- 1Italian National Research Center on Aging (INRCA-IRCCS) (Ancona), Ancona, Italy
- 2University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy
- 3University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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The increasing number of older people with chronic multiple diseases determines the growth in the care demand, while against a decreasing availability of formal and informal caregivers are decreasing. In many EU countries, migrant family care assistants (MFCAs) bridge the gap between supply and demand of H24 tailored home care, often without no training in elder care. This study aimesis aimed at deepening the offer of to explore elder care education to (migrant) family care assistants at the European level, to highlighting strengths and weaknesses useful for to improveing this kind of training.Methods: Twenty-six elder care courses were identified through a desk research carried out between December 2023 and March 2024 and then analyzed. Information regarding curricula, contents, length and teaching methods were extracted and compared to identify common and specific characteristics of the training programs.Results: FindingsThe results highlighted anthe often expensive, not unstandardized and jeopardized offer of elder care education and the scarcity of trainings addressing the specific emotional, cultural, social and linguistic needs of MFCAs, because learners are not consulted during the course design.The cCourses should be co-funded by the public administration to ensure make them accessible to for low-income people, co-designed with the target and embedding host country sociocultural contents and migration/work legislation. The inclusion of lLessons on dementia, behavioral disorders, and cognitive stimulation and internships at older people's home, supervised by the Public Authority, are recommended. Formattato: Inglese (Stati Uniti) Codice campo modificato Formattato: Inglese (Stati Uniti
Keywords: Migrant care worker, migrant family care assistants, elder care training, education in elder care, older people with long-term needs
Received: 30 Apr 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Santini, Frontalini, Casanova, Cancellieri, Grignoli, Golino, Moretti, Pronzato, Chirico and Chattat. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Vanessa Frontalini, Italian National Research Center on Aging (INRCA-IRCCS) (Ancona), Ancona, Italy
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