Elderly Care in Ireland and Germany

4th to 17th February 2018

A project in cooperation with the vocational school from Tábor, Czech Republic

In February 2018, the GEB receives a group of eight trainees in the elderly care sector from Tábor. In Germany, they complete a two-week internship in various retirement and retirement homes. The aim of the project is the extension of the linguistic, professional and intercultural competences of the trainees.

About this project

Population aging in Europe and the increase in life expectancy is a fact, not a prognosis. However, the countries of Western Europe are much better prepared for this demographic tendency. They are better at handling this important demographic trend as well as building the network of elderly care services. Moreover, these countries experience an increasing demand for workers in social services, including care workers in day care centers or community care assistants. Usually, the ubiquitous requirement is a sufficient language level, as the communication with the client is crucial in the field. For these reasons, we decided to enable our students to do an internship abroad in elderly care centers in Ireland and Germany, since German and English are the main foreign languages studied at our school. Our interns will acquire professional experience and trends in nursing care as well as linguistic self-confidence and get the very first opportunity to travel for work abroad. The participants will provide assistance with personal care to clients with various levels of self-sufficiency, they will communicate with the clients and provide all usual kinds of care like the local care workers. They will aim to provide a quality service within scope adjusted to the specific needs of geriatric clients. After an introductory training and a couple of days of working under supervision, the participants will be allowed to perform some activities unsupervised – unlike it is usual at practical trainings in the Czech Republic.