Empowering Residential Child Care through Interprofessional Training Erasmus Project

Project Title

Empowering Residential Child Care through Interprofessional Training

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Open and distance learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Around 340,000 children are roughly estimated to live in residential care across the EU (Lecrh and Severinsson 2019). In different child welfare systems, there is serious concern about the capability of residential agencies to protect and care for this group of children and youth. This concern is directly linked to the (insufficient) training background and (in)stability of the residential childcare (RCC) workforce. The research indicates that there is significant variety in the professional training, titles and terms, responsibilities and required competencies of RCC staff across Europe.

The specific objectives of the ERCCI project are:
1) To elaborate what and how residential child care as an intervention and future RCC workers need for integrated training are in focus in the partner countries (Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania and Spain).
2) To develop an understanding of qualification requirements for the RCC workforce that shares common values and respects the diversity of possible approaches to realize them across Europe
3) To design collaboratively a study module and ERCCI eLearning platform which meets the needs of the partners and future challenges of residential child care training and testing it with teachers, students and stakeholders
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 HEI training as well as workplace base training.

To tackle this lack of targeted training, the ERCCI project has developed an online course for residential staff in core competency areas. In this context we have encountered a question how to transform learning and teaching digital? As a result, we created the massive open online course (MOOC) which gathers the main theoretical and practical aspects that research has identified into pedagogically organised set of self-directed e-learning resources and opportunities. Using e-learning pedagogy, the unique ERCCI MOOC consists of six (6) learning modules, which are interlinked and capture competencies, which we believed to be essential to residential childcare (RCC) work. All learners with a variety of training backgrounds are welcome to study on this course. The flexibility of the MOOC makes it a perfect learning resource for any student or professional who is interested in better understanding care and education work in RCC. ERCCI MOOC is open and accessible for every higher education institutions interested in developing their RCC training. It is also open for utilising as a material for reflection in professional teams in residential facilities and is useful as an introduction material for newcomers in residential child care work. Learners can either do one session per week or take longer to go through all the resources. The course will be open and available for access at least until the end of 2026 so there is plenty of time to go through each of the learning modules. All material under the license can be freely used, as long as ERCCI-project is credited as the author. Open access to ERCCI MOOC, with noteworthy amount of 120 learning activities: video lectures, cases,videos, quizzes, vignettes, self-tests, readings, edited material, is in OER-service: https://aoe.fi/#/materiaali/1976. ERCCI handbook introduces the overview of the e-learning pedagogy, learning competence modules and study material in order to support the accessibility and scalability to uptake the ERCCI MOOC accordingly in higher education institutions (HEIs) both in Europe and worldwide.

In European and international level the impact in developing RCC competencies goes even beyond the expected and promised outcomes of the ERCCI project. One significant result of ERCCI is the academic research report ‘A comparative analysis of residential care – a 5-country multiple case-design study’ which have been presented in international conferences. This led to an exciting initiative from fellow researches to execute the replica research on the basis of innovative mapping methodology from ERCCI project in extensive network. The data is now collected from 18 countries for a book that will be published by Oxford University Press in 2022. The publication offers knowledge and comparison from 18 countries with respect to residential child care systems, program characteristics and features of RCC personnel and their training.

Please feel free to get in touch with us in order to find out more about the ERCCI MOOC and to discuss how we can support RCC training together!

The international consortium of experts:
• Dr. Eeva Timonen-Kallio and Dr. Digi-mentor, Tiina Pelander, Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland
• Prof Sigrid James and lecturer M.A., Doc.Candidate Juri Kilian, University of Kassel, Germany
• Prof Laura Formenti and lecturer, PhD Alessandra Rigamonti University of Milano Bicocca, Italy
• Asst Prof Alina Petrauskiene, Prof Brigita Kairiene and Asst prof Jolanta Pivoriene, Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania
• Prof Jorge F. del Valle and Prof Amaia Bravo, University of Oviedo, Spain

References:
Lerch, V. and Nordenmark Severinsson, A. (2019). “Target Group Discussion Paper on Children in Alternative Care”, Feasibility Study for a Child Guarantee (FSCG), Brussels: European Commission.
James, S., Wilczek, L., Kilian, J., Timonen-Kallio, E., Bravo, A., del Valle, J.F., Formenti, L., Petrauskiene, A., Pivoriene, J., & Rigamonti, A. (2021). A comparative analysis of residential care – a 5-country multiple case-design study. Child & Youth Care Forum, TBA, DOI 10.1007/s10566-021-09666-6

https://ercci.turkuamk.fi/en

Project Website

http://ercci.turkuamk.fi/en/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 321051,5 Eur

Project Coordinator

TURUN AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU OY & Country: FI

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITAET KASSEL
• MYKOLO ROMERIO UNIVERSITETAS
• UNIVERSIDAD DE OVIEDO
• UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO-BICOCCA