At the interplay of care and migration: Examining the potential of community health workers and live-in migrant care workers to address older adults’ unmet care needs

The heterogeneous older population in Belgium comes with diverse care needs, which makes one size fits all policies unsuccesfull. Previous research has demonstrated several problems with access to care: care services do not reach all older adults, several needs are not addressed by the current formal care offering and various barriers hinder access to care Alternative care workers offer an answer to these formal care gaps Two alternative strategies currently in use are healthcare bricolage approaches by hiring live in migrant care workers employed by private households, and outreach approaches implemented by community health workers employed by organisations.
This dissertation explores the potential of these alternative care workers’ in addressing these older adults’ unmet care needs and how this potential can be reached. Using different qualitative methodologies (narrative research, Most Significant Change and Context Mechanism Outcome configuration) in four studies, this dissertation demonstrates that alternative care workers’ potential in addressing older adults’ care needs lies in increasing acceptability, adequacy and awareness of care services Alternative care workers can be empowered through peer learning and peer support Also recognition of their profession, societal recognition and recognition of their experience, knowledge and skills contributes to their empowerment Care organisations might be empowered to better address older adults’ care needs through mutual learning between alternative care workers and their care employees and through learning from shortcomings in their care offering.
This dissertation concludes with recommending a genuine valuation of alternative care workers, economically, socially and politically Furthermore, the results highlight the added value of strengths based ( education for alternative care workers in order to take into account, build on, and benefit from their strong experiences and skills.