Child and family clinical studies researcher Agnes Willemen of VU Amsterdam and qualitative education researcher Anne de la Croix of Amsterdam UMC have received grants from the VU-CTL Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Fund.
With this grant, they will explore an educational innovation in which parents of children with care needs play an active role in the education of future care professionals.
The project, From Experience to Impact: Parent Educators as Educational Partners, focuses on how experiential parents can contribute to better care education and ultimately to more person-centred care. According to Anne de la Croix, the fair provides space to "innovate inquisitively and better understand what works so that others can learn from it".
Learning from parents: practical experience central
Within the education programme Caring Together, Learning Together, parents of care-intensive children are trained as so-called 'Parent Educators'. They share their experiences with students from programmes such as Pedagogical Sciences, Health Sciences and Medicine. Students thus gain insight into the daily lives of families with complex care needs and practice realistic conversations and situations.
"Being able to work well with parents is crucial for care professionals working with children," says Agnes Willemen. "Mentalising - being able to put yourself in the parent's shoes - helps with this. By giving parents a voice in education, students learn what families really need."
Since its launch in 2022, more than 5,000 students have already participated in education with Parent Educators. Evaluations show that students mainly make progress in empathy, communication and professionalism. At the same time, conversations with parents are sometimes perceived as tense, especially when students are being assessed. Precisely this field of tension is an important subject for the new research.
From educational innovation to social impact
The researchers hope their project will contribute to a shift in care education: away from theoretical communication skills and towards learning in real encounters. After all, according to the initiators, person-centred care starts with person-centred education.
By having students work with parents and families already during their education, future care providers can better respond to complex care situations and the needs of patients and their families. Meanwhile, the programme is being scaled up to MBO, HBO and other university courses.
Research and scaling up hand in hand
The SoTL grant consists of €10,000 and guidance on educational research and knowledge sharing. The timing follows an earlier upscaling grant of €100,000 from the National Knowledge Body for Educational Research (NKO), which further expands the deployment of Parent Educators.
With the new research, Willemen and De la Croix aim not only to improve their own education, but also to develop knowledge that is more widely applicable within healthcare education.