Different wellbeing actors from Western Uusimaa and the metropolitan area gathered to Laurea Lohja campus on 8th of March 2023 to discuss about the services for the aging population in the region and to hear about the preliminary results of the Erasmus+ MiCare project.

The event started with presentations about the topic from different perspectives. Sari Heikkinen from Laurea presented the Sustainable and Diverse Social and Health Care Research Program, linking it to the theme of the event: making older people services better. After Sari’s presentation, two nursing directors, Hannele Patjas and Lillemor Forsén from the Western Uusimaa wellbeing services county (LUVN) described the wide and versatile services of seniors in the area. The region has launched a senior info service for the older population and their families and the mobile hospital LiiSa is in the process to later cover the entire area of the wellbeing county.

These presentations lead the way to the topic of the event, the MiCare project.  The project supports migrants’ professional and social integration as carers while improving the quality of care delivered to older people. Jaakko Tyni and Elina Pajakoski presented the structure and preliminary results of the project, which is approaching its end. The training toolkit which was developed in the project was piloted in Lohja in January. The results were promising according to the participants of the pilot. In the event at Laurea campus, the audience showed interest towards the training toolkit and other outputs of the project. Also, possible hiring of the pilot participants was discussed, showing the growing need of care assistants in the area.

The key observation during the event and discussions was that all actors, and especially collaboration between actors, are needed as the population of the region ages and the social and healthcare sector faces various challenges, such as shortage of nursing professionals. The challenges require a collective effort and a coordinated approach to ensure the delivery of high-quality and sustainable services for the aging population. The meeting highlighted the importance of cross-sectoral collaboration and the need for innovative solutions to address the varying needs of the aging population.

We would like to thank all the speakers, the staff and students from Luksia and our key partners: Betesda-säätiö, Helsingin Seniorisäätiö, LUVN and Sininauhasäätiö and all the participants.

P.S. The event was facilitated by Irene Väkevä-Harjula and after the presentations we had the opportunity to enjoy her “eläkekakkukahvit”. Thank you Irene!

MiCare – Supporting migrants’ professional and social integration as carers is an Erasmus+ co-funded project which is lead by IPERIA (FRA). The other partners are Cesur (ESP), Laurea (FIN), Margotta (ITA), UDD (FRA) and WIAB (AUT).