FEEL GOOD. STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP COMPETENCES FOR HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS Erasmus Project

Project Title

FEEL GOOD. STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP COMPETENCES FOR HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS

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 vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Recognition, transparency, certification; Health and wellbeing; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

FEEL GOOD project originates from the emerging need of the social and healthcare sector to have professionals equipped with a baggage of relational competences capable of enhancing the “care” of patients through positive relationships. Nowadays, having good scientific knowledge and technical skills is not enough. Healthcare professionals should put the beneficiaries at the centre of their action, considering the uniqueness and dignity of each individual and be allowed to become emotionally involved. From this perspective, a paradigm shift is needed in the healthcare sector towards the approach of Medical Humanities (MH). This approach responds to a stronger and stronger trend in medicine to separate technical protocols from human events. The use of MH aims at training ad hoc attitudes and behaviors to realize the so‐called “humanistic medicine”, which deals with developing communicative and relational skills, empathic attitudes, interpretative skills and self‐care.
The objective of the project is to improve the relationship competences of healthcare professionals when working with users of healthcare/patients. In particular, the project aims at: i) increasing healthcare professionals’ awareness about issues such as multiculturalism, empathy and active listening; ii) enhancing healthcare professionals’ knowledge regarding Medical Humanities and application of its principles in their daily practice, iii) assisting self-evaluation and self-reflection processes regarding soft skills of healthcare professionals and beneficiaries; iv) highlight the importance of hidden curriculum regarding health care professionals’ education.
FEEL GOOD was implemented over a period of 30 months by a consortium of five partners led by Comunità Capodarco di Roma. The partnership brought together different views and areas of expertise. BFI OO is one of the biggest adult education centers in Austria and its longstanding experience in vocational training, its strong focus on the care of elderly, and its extensive network and participation to European projects was extremely helpful and enriching for the quality of the project results. IASIS, FDO and Comunità Capodarco also boast solid experience in social services in the broad sense and vocational training with vulnerable groups, especially people with disabilities, psychiatric diseases, and migrants. and minors neglected. People Aps. contributed substantially with its skills in the field of research, counselling, competence mapping and coaching paths for empowerment.
The project involved a range of participants: from social and healthcare professionals to students of healthcare professions, from stakeholders in the sector (VET organizations, public health hospitals, private service providers, policy makers) to beneficiaries of healthcare services and their family members. This was facilitated by the connections and the daily work of partners with these groups. The project “physically” involved in FeelGood planned activities approximately 1000 people, and many more were reached through dissemination activities of the project’s objectives and outputs.
FEEL GOOD implementation unfolded through four stages: the development of three intellectual outputs and one transversal phase dedicated to communication and dissemination throughout project lifetime. The first Intellectual Output (IO1) “Empowerment of European healthcare operators” is the product of the comparison of four national research undertaken with the aim of mapping the needs and areas of strategic competencies that can enhance the relationship between health and social care providers and users, as emerged from surveys with professionals and key actors of the sector. From another perspective, the aim of second Intellectual Output (IO2) “Social vision of healthcare professionals” was to collect information on the correct understanding of the needs of final beneficiaries, how to prevent inappropriate and harmful behavior of healthcare professionals and how to improve the organization of services in terms of cost-effectiveness. Building on IO1 and IO2 results, the partnership through a participatory approach of co-evaluation, piloting and peer-review, defined and finalized the structure and content of the third and last Intellectual Output (IO3) “Training Model relationship competences for healthcare professionals” composed by three Learning Units and seven Modules of 6 hours each. This training product addresses different targets and is transferable to many contexts as it can be used in a variety of educational situations: vocational training, higher education, lifelong education. It was officially presented at the Final Conference held in Rome at the regional-level authority Regione Lazio, and raised the interest of several stakeholders, including VET providers and healthcare facilities, who showed the desire to adopt the Training Model for their services or personnel.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 352412,88 Eur

Project Coordinator

Comunità Capodarco di Roma & Country: IT

Project Partners

• IASIS
• Fundacion Docete Omnes
• People srl
• BERUFSFORDERUNGSINSTITUT OBEROSTERREICH
• Associazione di Promozione Sociale People