Introduction: A 5-Country Project to Strengthen Competencies and Skills of Residential Child Care Workers
2Educational Sciences and Social Work, Mykolas Romeris University
3Psychology, Universidad de Oviedo
4Human Sciences for Education, Università degli Studi Milano-Bicocca
5Social Work and Social Welfare, University of Kassel
Despite highly critical discussions about the role and function of residential child care (RCC) and efforts by some countries to reduce its utilization, RCC continues to be an important setting and form of intervention for children and youth with multiple and complex needs. Given evidence of inadequate training among RCC professionals and high rates of turnover, a collaborative 5-country project called Empowering Residential Child Care through Interprofessional Training (ERCCI) was initiated in 2018 to explore core competencies as well as deficits in RCC training and develop standards toward increased professionalization. The project involves five European countries in different regions and with different economies and social welfare systems. The broad aim is to create an e-learning platform with teachable skills and knowledge modules that can be included in the standard training of RCC workers, either at workplaces or as part of social work university programs. The stated specific objectives are:
1) to elaborate what RCC as an intervention and future RCC workers need for integrated training, 2) to develop an understanding of qualification requirements for the RCC workforce that reflects common values and respects the diversity of possible approaches to make them useful across Europe, 3) to design collaboratively a study module which meets the needs of the partners and future challenges of residential child care training and test it with teachers, students and stakeholders, and 4) to enable the exploitation of produced deliverables into the other European countries and to realize them in training educational levels in bachelor and masters Higher Education training as well as workplace base training.
Over the course of the project, the teaching module will be developed, implemented and evaluated. This symposium will include three papers. Paper #1 will provide an overview of the project, its conceptual foundation, and goals and methods.