ABOUT CASA
Care Assistants Search Agency (CASA) is a new European project supported by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-country Nationals Community Actions.
Ageing population and changes in family patterns make older people and people with disabilities more and more dependent on EU health care systems which, in turn, are struggling to respond to this increasing demand.
However, that said, the EU is a recipient of major migration flows from third countries and is set to remain a popular destination for migrants over the coming decades.
CASA addresses the increasing need for long term and quality care of older people and people with disabilities by facilitating and supporting the integration of third countries nationals in the EU. The aim is to improve the quality of care of people in need and help immigrants, in particular women, find better jobs and facilitate their social and economic integration into European Society.
The partnership will model an Agency to marry the increasing demand for long term carers with the supply of workers from third countries. The Agency model will be tested in 3 EU Member States (Germany, Italy and Greece) with the long term objective of being transferred across the EU.
The Agency will help:
- Provide work for trained immigrants specialised in long term care: home nursing, home help for older people, assistance to people with disabilities
- Promote new opportunities for social and professional inclusion to immigrant workers through appropriate vocational training
- Introduce higher professional care standards in the informal care sector
- Improve care assistance in general through a tailored selection of workers on the basis of individual families' needs
- Reduce social tensions towards immigrants and enhance their social and economic integration
- Contribute reducing the frequency of illegal jobs in this sector
- Encourage competition and promote the economic viability of care services
Project CASA is structured as follows:
An initial phase of the project is to measure, through a survey, the demand for long term care, the supply of immigrant workers, existing networks and key bodies active in this sector (not for profit organisation, associations, institutions, training bodies, health system). The survey will also measure the services - if available - in the three EU countries where the project will be implemented: Italy, Greece and Germany.
The output of this phase is a clear understanding of demand, supply and key players involved in the care sector in the three identified countries.
A second phase will envisage the Agency modelling with a clear selection and identification of services and the definition of the legal, administrative and financial requirements for its functioning. This will also include the identification of the requirements for a user-friendly ICT system for the Agency. This system will need to be able to manage effectively information flows, databases and multilingual contents.
The outputs of this phase are feasibility reports detailing:
- the legal, administrative and financial requirements to set up the Agency in the three targeted countries
- a definition of the ICT support needed
- the other services and the transferability criteria required to replicate the Agency model across Europe
The third phase will test the Agency model and two pilot services. Testing will be done on two user groups representing stakeholders in the three countries targeted by the project.
The output of this phase is an assessment report on the Agency model and the two pilot services.