Print version Recommend this page Press release
34/ 2003
Bonn, 16.09.2003
BIBB recommends nation-wide introduction of an innovative training strategy for the trade of "nurse for senior citizens"
"A crucial step has been taken to eliminate the shortage of qualified nursing staff for senior citizens in the guise of the national Senior Citizens Care Act, which took effect on August 1, 2003. The task is now to put this Act into practice! The Act aims at enhancing the attractive-ness of the "nurse for senior citizens" profession and seeks to persuade more young people to pursue this career. But this first requires that a new training strategy be devised. The development of skilled workers' ability to work effectively in the trade are at the heart of it all. The curriculum for the training of nurses for senior citizens developed by the Federal Instiute for Vocational Training shows how this goal can be accomplished by structuring the practical as well as classroom instruction parts of the training. The BIBB training strategy has already been implemented in the Saarland, Brandenburg will be launching it in October while the Robert Bosch Foundation has awarded it a prize in a competition to come up with new concepts entitled "Rethinking nursing care - viable future training strategies". It is recommended that the BIBB training curriculum for the profession of "nurse for senior citizens" be introduced throughout Germany because it is compatible in each of its ele-ments with the new legal regulations set out in the Senior Citizens Care Act!"
This appeal was voiced by the General Secretary of the Federal Institute for Vocational Training (BIBB), Prof. Dr. Helmut Pütz, at a press conference on the topic "Towards an innovative senior citizens nursing care training with a future: The BIBB training strategy for the profession of "nurse for senior citizens", which the institute carried out. The persons attending the conference held in Bonn on September 16, 2003 included the Saarland Minister for Women, Labour, Health and Social Affairs, Dr. Regina Görner. The press confer-ence was held in Cologne on September 30, 2003 to award the Robert Bosch Foundation prize to BIBB or, more specifically, to the head of the BIBB section for "Personal and social service occupations", Dr. Wolfgang Becker, for the training strategy developed in the area of senior citizens nursing care under his direction.
The situation of nursing staff and their training has been a subject of BIBB research for years now. The Institute carried out a highly acclaimed study on the training process, experience in the field of practice and why nursing staff stay in the profession in the first and thus far only research project on this subject in the 1990s. The most important finding of the study was that training of nursing care staff in the institutional (school) framework is too far removed from reality in the profession! The result of this failure to base training more closely on the field of practice was that everyone in an entire class left the profession after only five years to seek another type of employment.
To fundamentally eliminate the problems and deficiencies which prevail in the area of nursing care for senior citizens, the Saarland seized the initiative in 2002, issuing a new Act on Train-ing for Nursing Care of Senior Citizens. This made it possible to implement a unique new strategy for the training occupation of "nurse for senior citizens", which was developed upon the instigation of the Saarland Minister for Women, Labour, Health and Social Affairs, Dr. Regina Görner, by BIBB together with the Saarland Nursing Care School. At the core of the strategy, which is based on requirements in the field of practice and vocational development possibilities, is a "dual" training curriculum organised according to learning goals and practi-cal vocational skills. The trainees attend theoretical classes at a vocational training school and undergo practical training. In contrast to the usual type of training which takes place at voca-tional training schools, "practice" in this case does not mean doing an "internship". Rather, practical work is an independent part of the training which is carried out in real-life care of elderly people.
Brandenburg is also convinced that this training strategy offers clear advantages and will be instituting the same strategy later this year: The BIBB training curriculum will become the mandatory basis for training here beginning in October 2003. Other German Länder have yet to complete the decision-making process; for instance, the CDU party group in the North Rhine-Westphalia Landtag has tabled a motion to have the BIBB curriculum used in NRW as well. The price awarded by the Robert Bosch Foundation has also done a lot to underscore the quality of BIBB's work developing strategies in the field of nursing care for senior citizens.
Prof. Pütz noted that "the broad approval which has been afforded our 'dual' training strategy for nursing care of senior citizens shows that BIBB has taken on the status of a centre of competence for vocational training in health (and social) fields as well. It is better equipped than many universities to develop curricula and training materials with which to design training programmes in nursing care and social work areas along practical lines and provide these promising new prospects as viable fields of work in the future.
