Summary
The home care sector is one of the largest growing sectors in France with many businesses and working opportunities. It is also facing challenges: an increasing demand due to the ageing population, difficulties in finding and keeping qualified staff and a complicated regulatory framework. A supposed explanation is the lack of knowledge and positive projection in home care jobs. WHY A JOB RALLY? A rally to discover home care jobs has been developed in Nouvelle-Aquitaine by Gérontopôle NA, Cap Métiers NA (regional agency for guidance, training, employment) with the support of AG2R La Mondiale (social protection body) and other institutional partners. It aims at enhancing the value of home care jobs in order to attract people to discover these professions, understand the possible career path(s) and therefore enable them to choose or not this profession with full knowledge of its aspects. FOR WHOM? It is organised for job seekers, students, people undergoing vocational retraining, employees in the home care sector or employment and professional integration actors, etc. ORGANISATION: During 2-5 weeks, workshops are set up on 7 themes: employers / work situations, realities of the job, working conditions, knowledge of the public, training, other home care professionals, professional development. Partnerships among organisations are developed in territories to collectively promote these jobs.
Planning and Implementation
-
What was the challenge you were trying to address?
Home care is a sector in crisis. In Nouvelle-Aquitaine, which is the oldest region in France and a rural region with challenges in access to care, the personal assistance professions are more essential than ever to meet the challenges of a population losing its autonomy. In the region, there are every year 7,000 job positions of care assistants and home carers (Study DARES - Métiers 2022). Many remain vacant and 80% of recruitments are considered difficult by employers (Pôle emploi - BMO 2021). In this context, it is essential to develop, support and promote home care jobs. “Helping people to age well”: “Enhancing the value of independent living professions: quality, recognition, job development” is an axis of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region’s silver economy 2018-2021 roadmap.
-
Who were you trying to impact?
Both older and younger people
-
What sectors were you targeting?
Education, Health, Information and Communication, Labour, Long-term care
-
Who else was involved?
Government, Civil Society Organization, Older People's Association, Academia, Health Care, Social Care, Private Sector
-
How did older people participate?
Older people were part of the process at multiple or all stages
Lessons learned
-
Please describe how collaboration worked in your initiative.
Job Rallies to develop the attractiveness of home care jobs are led by one or two actors who will then invite all the actors of the ecosystem willing to collaborate in the implementation of the rally: home care services (of different legal status), training organisations, associations representing beneficiaries, employment actors (such as Pôle Emploi, the national employment agency), institutional actors (including local authorities such as Départements), occupational health actors. Thus, each partner will propose one or more workshops during the rally to present one of the 7 themes of the rally. Some partners even co-organise workshops in order to show the articulation between the themes and the actors. The rally leaders coordinate the actions of all the partners via information meetings, then coordination meetings and finally meetings to assess the action. The effects of the rally include the dynamics created between the partners during the rally.
-
What was the impact of your initiative on older people, their families, and/or their communities?
This initiative has been deployed at a large scale: 10 Job Rally editions have been organised in 7 different départements (last one in May 2022 in Bordeaux), gathering more than 1300 participants overall. Regarding impacts on the home care workforce, they are difficult to be directly measured as the sector suffers from a very negative image and the continuation of the rally is difficult to collect, as participants do not necessarily report on their follow-up. However, feedback from participants show that the rally enabled participants to: - gain a better understanding of the sector - build their network - for those interested: continue their integration into the sector (training, internships or even employment) Besides, a good partnership dynamic has been established among stakeholders working on active and healthy ageing but not only.
-
What issues did you face, and how did you address them?
Regarding the issues faced during the implementation of this initiative, we can share key lessons learnt (presented in the “Practical kit for project leaders who wish to organise a job rally to discover home care jobs”): Project governance: - A neutral and legitimate lead - A clearly designated project leader - A steering group that shares the same objectives with a clear division of tasks - Planning of tasks and actions to be carried out. Partnerships: - Ensure the involvement of the diversity of home help actors - Ensure that the rally and its challenges are fully understood - Clarify everyone's role and the commitment expected in the context of this rally - Identify the partners likely to organise workshops. Workshops: - Identify a referent per partner - Invite partners to co-organise workshops to allow participants to validate different themes within the same workshop - Propose a readable, coherent and comprehensive complete programme - Organise different types of courses to adapt them to groups, especially student groups The most important is to work with employment integration actors as soon as possible in the process so that a large public can be involved. It is key to the success of the initiative.
-
What lessons did you learn from implementing this initiative?
The people targeted by this job rally (job seekers, people changing career, etc.), need to become aware of the reality of home care jobs and this requires meetings, role playing but also the development of their professional network. In addition, the ageing sector needs to unite in order to present itself collectively to the younger generation, job seekers, etc. Beyond the differences between professions, sectors and even between legal status, the usefulness and meaning of these professions "at the service of older persons" are found in these professions. By pooling our energies, strengths and good ideas, we can present a more positive image and encourage new people to take an interest in these professions.
-
Do you have any other reflections you would like to share?
Nouvelle-Aquitaine is one of the 65 Reference Sites for Active and Healthy Ageing. AHA Reference Sites are an alliance or partnership of stakeholders within a region or major metropolitan area that can implement or develop innovative and person-centred solutions and digital technologies to address the life-course health and care needs and priorities for active and healthy ageing. Gérontopôle NA is the regional organisation federating the quadruple helix stakeholders and aims to identify future needs related to ageing, support interdisciplinary research and encourage innovation and identify emerging practices. Building on the previous regional Living Lab “Autonom’Lab”, Gérontopôle NA has been created in 2021 by its founding members the Regional Council and the Health Regional Agency (representing the State). More than 200 quadruple helix stakeholders are members and elect their representatives in the governance of the Gérontopôle. As the Gérontopôle is labelled ENOLL “European Network of Living Labs”, each innovative project is supported via a user-driven approach. At national level, specifications of a Gérontopôle have been officially published in January 2022 at the request of the Ministry in charge of autonomy. They show coming collaboration and scaling-up opportunities among the current 9 Gérontopôles in France.