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About the project

  • Currently, 73% of Danish municipalities lack care workers, “SOSU staff”, and in 2030, the shortage is expected to reach around 42,000 employees nationwide. This is due to a strong growth in the number of elderly people requiring care, lower applications combined with high dropouts in care worker educations, as well as the fact that many care workers will retire in the next few years.
  • The SOSU schools have been successful to a certain extent in recruiting students with migrant backgrounds. However, they are challenged by a significant drop-out rate, particularly in the internship course. The municipalities are also challenged by the fact that many care workers choose to leave the profession after a few years. SOSU schools and municipalities report that students and employees with a migrant background can be challenged by language barriers as well as the knowledge and understanding of social and cultural norms in working with colleagues and older citizens.
     
  • MIGSOSU’s aim is twofold, namely to:
  1. Contribute with solutions on how SOSU schools and municipalities attract and retain more SOSU students and employees with a migrant background by creating attractive and inclusive study and working environments.
  2. Provide SOSU students and employees with a migrant background with tools to improve their learning, communication, and collaboration in work situations.
     

The potential of this recruitment and training optimization model is great and contains, among other things, a significant socio-economic gain. Some of the people with a migrant background are currently either unemployed or employed in unskilled jobs. The gain occurs on several fronts: The people with a migrant background will enhance their professional developments during vocational training and thereby secure skilled care worker jobs. And, following from this, they will help to ensure that the elderly people in Denmark in the future will receive vital and dignified care at the same service levels as today.

 

 

 

Contributors and stakeholders

The project is a collaboration between Moesgaard Anthropological Research and Analysis (MANTRA), Aarhus University and the Alexandra Institute in collaboration with the following contributors: Vejen Municipality, Varde Municipality, Høje-Taastrup Municipality, SOSU Esbjerg, SOSU H, Danish SOSU schools, FOA, KL and the Joint Committee for Vocational Welfare Education.

Value creation and welfare innovation

Expected results of MIGSOSU

1. A website and a best practice catalogue with experiences and recommendations for the recruitment and retention of SOSU students and employees with a migrant background, especially in elderly care, based on studies of local initiatives and practices across the country.

2. A new interactive learning app ‘The SOSU Aspirant’, which supports SOSU students and employees with a migrant background in their learning, communication and collaboration with colleagues, managers and elderly citizens in work situations, especially during internships, where the most dropouts occurs.


MIGSOSU’s solutions thus create a practice-near and scalable infrastructure that produces value for both institutions and individuals:
 

  • Danish SOSU schools gain access to useful knowledge and tools to support the individual SOSU schools, their strategies and practices regarding the attraction and retention of students with a migrant background, and the participating SOSU schools will have their efforts evaluated as well as gain access to learning-supporting technology. The schools will also gain access to knowledge about what motivates potential SOSU-students with a migrant background to start the education, as well as what both challenges and keeps them in the schools.  
  • SOSU students and staff with a migrant background in the schools and in the elderly care sector will benefit from improved learning and language support through technological solutions as well as more supportive and inclusive study and learning environments. They will be encouraged to complete their education as SOSU helpers or SOSU assistants and thus have the prospect of employment and a higher socio-economic status.
  • The municipal elderly sector will benefit from knowledge and tools to retain more trained SOSU employees in elderly care through improved support in work situations and more inclusive work environments. This will also benefit citizens, as sufficient skilled labour ensures that elderly care-requiring citizens receive sufficient and qualified help and support.
  • On a national level, the project will contribute to moving more people from unemployment or unskilled work to skilled work, retain people with a migrant background as valuable labour in Denmark and maintain the level of service in public elderly care.

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