Resources

Every quality management and regulation system for the care of dependent persons defines criteria relating to the professional training of caregivers: content of training curricula, minimum qualification levels for access to certain occupations, duration of programs and hours of practice, among others. However, there are considerable differences between countries in terms of training standards, evaluation and certification of competencies. This document gathers experiences that are currently underway, mainly in public institutions in Latin America, and seeks to provide an overview of the context in which training and certification policies are implemented, as well as a detailed description of the characteristics of the services, the main achievements, challenges and lessons learned. Although this is a sample of the existing offer, the aim is to generate quality information that will contribute to decision making for the improvement of co-responsibility of care, especially in education and technical-professional training policies, while considering the need to operate under a system vision. The information presented here comes from the literature review, consultation of the websites of the institutions responsible for training and certification of labor competencies in each country and primary information collected through a process developed by the ILO and the Inter-American Center for Knowledge Development in Vocational Training (ILO/CINTERFOR) during the second semester of 2022 and the first months of 2023 called "Training and certification services for caregiving: the growing role of Vocational Training Institutions in Latin America". The purpose of this project was to promote the exchange of experiences and encourage discussion and analysis of key aspects for the professionalization of care as an essential element for the improvement of services and the conditions of the workers who provide them.