Creating the best possible work environment for caregivers and offering high quality of life to the residents of the care home ASP Terre di Castelli Giorgio Gasparini, in Vignola (Italy) .

… in a playful way …

A quality place of work improves efficiency. No doubt about that. At ASP Terre di Castelli Giorgio Gasparini, a nursing home in Vignola, Italy, I had the opportunity to work with its care givers and staff to create a great work environment using a playful methodology while guaranteeing quality of life for its residents.

We started off with an existing game – GAMLEC– the outcome of a European EramusPlus project, coordinated by my company, IP-International, and rewarded by the German National Agency as a “good practice”.

This learning game focuses on the quality of life of care home residents who cannot take care of themselves any more. Their quality of life is the objective of all nursing homes and their staff.

However, what about the quality of the actual workplace?

The better the quality of the workplace, the happier the staff, and the greater the quality they are able to offer to residents.

Sounds obvious, right?

But… is a learning game enough to improve collaboration and team work and create a great place to work in? Yes, even though there was some initial skepticism and resistance from the staff. However, the Director of this organisation, Marco Franchini, was determined to adopt a creative and fun way to offer a quality work place to the staff of his ASP care home… and he was proven right.

Together with the participants, we added a new section in the game on “quality of the work place”. As is the case in any part of the game, the learning content is based on real life stories which have been suitably developed into learning content for the specific purpose of the educational game.

And, surprise, surprise, in spite of the initial skepticism, participants thoroughly enjoyed being involved in creating a new section of the game dedicated to their specific needs. They also showed a lot of enthusiasm about this way of learning.

Within 6 months, the organisation managed to involve all staff members of one department in at least one game-based learning session, and is now extending the learning experience to other departments and cross-functional groups.

Furthermore, Walter Angiò, the care sector coordinator, told me that the care facility now has a large number of new recruits due to the generational change, and is using the learning game to ensure that new recruits have a quick and successful start to working life in the care home. He also stated that they will continue doing so in the future.

Thumbs up! The quality of life for the residents of this care facility and the quality of work for its personnel can – and should – go hand in hand.

It’s something I’m passionate about, it’s one of my missions.

Interested in watching them talking about the training on the TV news?