Intercultural Project
We often forget the specific needs of older people in our discussions about migration. This is understandable - most people who migrated to Ireland in the last 15 years are still relatively young and their most pressing issues are to do with very immediate concerns like finding a home; finding work; raising children all within the context of integrating into a new society. However moving countries does not halt the ageing process and some people who moved to Ireland in the last twenty or so years already are or will soon be at an age when they may welcome support services for older people such as residential or home care.
Another angle on the issue is that much of the care of older people in Ireland, as in most Western countries, has been taken on by migrant health and social care workers. The adult care workforce has undergone a big change in population and culture in the past 15 years or so and it is now estimated that about 30% of the staff in the older adult care sector are from another country. This change is an enormously enriching opportunity for Ireland. As well as introducing diverse backgrounds and many new skills into the sector it helps the sector prepare changing needs in the older population as it becomes ever more diverse. But there are challenges also. Recent research done by the Migrant Rights Organisation (2012) and by the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology in Galway University (2008) has shown that the picture is generally good but also indicated that there are a number of challenging issues. Many migrant care workers experience a degree of cultural misunderstanding, discrimination and sometimes explicit racism in their daily work.
With these factors in mind Age Action Ireland has received funding from the European Integration Fund to run a one year project which will explore these issues further and look at ways that the challenges in the system can be addressed. The first part of the project involves doing a needs assessment in a number of Residential Care Homes in the North Dublin Area to update the research and to hear from workers both Irish and from other countries, from management, from residents and from residents’ relatives, what they see as the current issues. This needs analysis has just been completed. The findings confirm the findings in the previous Irish research. Most people who participated in the needs analysis, residents, staff, managers, were clearly of the opinion that having staff members from all over the world enriches the daily life of residents and staff. Quotes such as one from a resident in a residential home and another from a staff person, ‘it broadens our world’, ‘We need people from other countries; we have become too institutionalised as a nation’, capture this opinion.
Challenges
Not surprisingly however, similar challenges to those found in the previous research were identified. It would be almost impossible to make the transition from a largely mono-cultural to a more diverse society without some difficulties. These challenges ranged from intercultural misunderstandings to more worrying forms of explicit racism. At the former end of this spectrum, management, staff and residents noted the difficulty for non-Irish staff in understanding Irish culture and sense of humour which obviously affected the speed with which they connected with their clients and highlights the need for cultural familiarity training. At the more alarming end of the spectrum, a large proportion of respondents, about 60%, had either experienced or witnessed, some form of discrimination or racially motivated abuse towards another colleague. These instances came from management, fellow staff members, residents and relatives. A number of respondents commented that many residents resist care by ‘foreign’ staff. They noted that non-Irish staff experience ‘racial abuse due to colour of skin from clients and relatives’. It is important to note that many Irish respondents, management, staff, residents, expressed concern about these incidents of prejudice and racism and worried about how they could support their colleagues and carers.
Next Steps
The next stage in the project is to use the information gathered in this process to develop a range of strategies, policies and intercultural training that that will promote intercultural understanding and minimise discrimination and racism. The intercultural training programme is being tested with some of the participating homes at the moment. In the longer term it is hoped to publicise the learning from the project and implement some of the strategies nationwide. The hope is that it will contribute to the long term aim of the project which is to ensure interculturalism and anti-discrimination become core values within the residential care sector.
Ann Moroney; Project Coordinator; Age Action
For further information about this project contact: intercultural@ageaction.ie
You can also find them on twitter @AgeAction https://twitter.com/AgeAction
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