The MUGIGAIN cross-border project : « Mobility across borders »

August 2020

Conseil économique, social et environnemental régional (CESER)

The MUGIGAIN project is a good example of an initiative that responds both to a challenge shared by New Aquitaine and its neighbours in the Euroregion (the increasing need for health and care for the elderly in a context of an ageing population), and to the concrete needs identified in the cross-border territory:

• Firstly, the observation of a job in tension: the need for professionals in the field of health, in particular in the North Basque Country where the demand increased by the ageing of Spanish immigrants in France, whose use of the mother tongue improves care, is struggling to find a supply.

• Secondly, mobility is hampered by a lack of knowledge of the workings of the two cross-border regions, insufficient language skills and, despite a common profession, a lack of knowledge on the part of health professionals of the differences and similarities in their practice.

At the initiative of the project, the Institut de Formation des Aides-Soignants (IFAS) and its partners have conceived MUGIGAIN as a cross-border community of practice in learning and vocational training of excellence.

Its objectives :

• Firstly, to improve the quality of training and the employability of future professionals by defining common competences, improving mutual knowledge of health systems and developing a professional vocabulary specific to the cross-border territory.

• Secondly, to develop a care offer on each side of the border facilitating the mobility of future health care assistants while taking into account the cultural and sociological particularities of each territory.

Given its contribution to these objectives, and although defined as a micro-project, MUGIGAIN is no more and no less part of an effort to build a cross-border social policy in the field of health.

Mobility on the cross-border territory and the pooling of human resources (future care assistants) are therefore the pillars of a working method designed to meet the needs of today and tomorrow.

It was organised in three phases :

• the first, focused on the mobility of trainers ;

• the second, on the mobility of learners on clinical placements

• the third, on the mobility of students and trainers in training.

The project method includes :

• the development of good professional and pedagogical practices aimed at promoting plurilingualism ;

• the realisation of an economic, legal and social comparison through the prism of the training of health care assistants;

• the comparison of training standards and practices;

• participation in the cross-border COP and support for chosen mobility in France and Spain.

Despite a detailed knowledge of the territories, the profession and the needs, the difficulties in obtaining funds threatened the viability of the project by affecting the partnership relationship. The validation and recognition of learning outcomes is another obstacle, which the project is trying to overcome by considering the European ECVET system and the creation of « visas » allowing access to training, obtaining diplomas on both sides of the border and exportable work permits.

This experience, very much rooted in the cross-border reality, is rich in learning that can be used elsewhere. The interest it arouses and its « reproducible » nature make it a resource for other territories of New Aquitaine: « the needs of elderly people are the same, regardless of the side of the border », regardless of the territories…

Sources