The Department of Labour and Employment explains its model for professionalising and dignifying care in Brussels

• “We are talking about the rights of workers, care and the rights of cared-for people, so that both are carried out under dignified conditions”

The Deputy Minister of Employment and Inclusion, Alfonso Gurpegui, explained today in Brussels the model designed by the Department, led by Vice President Idoia Mendia, for professionalising and dignifying caregiving tasks, which have a gender impact on the quality of employment as it is mostly women who work in this sector.

Invited by the European Federation for Family Employment and Home Care, within the framework of the European Year of Skills, the Vice Minister explained exactly how this model, devised by the Department of Labour and Employment, has allowed people without qualifications to care for others with different dependencies to have been able to accredit skills that allow them not only to better care for those they care for, but also to open the doors to a qualification to access a job in this area under better conditions.

According to Gurpegui, one of the realities in one of the societies in Europe that has people living the longest, such as the Basque Country, is that “there are many people, the vast majority of them women and a significant part of them migrants, who have agreed to work in homes as domestic workers and, over time, have begun to develop care tasks without having specific training”.

From that reality, at the beginning of the legislature the Department allied with the SSI Cooperative Group to design a strategy that would address this issue. One of the findings is that many of these people were interns and, therefore, could not attend the formal courses offered by the Public Employment Service - Lanbide. For this reason, a specific programme was designed for them, called Mentsad, by which they are offered telematic and online training and, in their available time, usually on Saturday afternoons, they were offered face-to-face classes on practical issues such as the physical management of people with reduced mobility and other, similar issues.

The experience, monitored at all times, has meant that 60 women now have access to a certificate that gives them professional recognition. Hence, this innovative format in training will be incorporated into Lanbide's offer from next year.

“We are talking about the rights of care workers, and the rights of caregivers, so that both live and work in a dignified condition. And offering these solutions is not only good for them, for each other, but it is essential for society as a whole. Because when we talk about the challenge of care we cannot face it only from the point of view of family co-responsibility. This is an essential debate, but in the short term it will not solve the underlying problem — having qualified personnel trained in the skills that allow them to work with dignity and also live with dignity, with a decent job,” said the Deputy Minister in summary.

All in all, Gurpegui defended a broader vision of longevity management, “which should be seen not as a problem, but as a reality to which solutions should be offered and which also offers opportunities for professional qualification in different areas related to the fact that there are more and more older people.”

“The vast majority of those who have reached retirement are not dependents, they are independent people who want to remain so, but above all they are people who want to continue enjoying all their abilities in all areas of life, who have guaranteed income thanks to the public pension system and, in large part, own their home, with no debt. What they need is that the services are adapted to their needs and, above all, that all the barriers to that full life are eliminated, such as the digital barrier, which is something we are now going to work on more intensely,” he concluded.