In Taiwan, there are 900,000 family caregivers providing care for people with disabilities. However, most of them are without a caregiving or nursing background. To improve the caregiving quality, Far Eastern Memorial Foundation collaborated with Far Eastern Memorial Hospital Nursing Department and Department of Nursing, Asia Eastern University of Science and Technology on a training program to enhance the competence of family and foreign caregivers.

Student volunteers from Department of Nursing, Asia Eastern University of Science and Technology earned internship credits while serving in the program. Far Eastern Memorial Foundation sponsored the establishment of Long-Term Care Classroom within the department, which opened on October 16, 2021. The classroom will hopefully serve as a useful learning facility for courses on elderly, long-term and Alzheimer’s care. It will also serve as a venue for the industry-academia collaboration with healthcare facilities, promoting the development of an educational network for native and foreign caregivers, strengthening their professional knowledge, skills and techniques as well as helping them to provide assistance for families in need, giving them the best care and comfort.

Two caregiving courses were held in Long-Term Care Classroom on December 11 and 18. The courses were taught by professors from Department of Nursing, Asia Eastern University of Science and Technology, supervisors from Far Eastern Memorial Hospital Nursing Department and nurses from the hospital’s Home Health Care Service. They demonstrated caregiving techniques and offered training videos with multilingual options, including Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai and Pilipino. The 2 courses drew 40 participants, who expressed positive remarks about the program. It is the hope that the courses will be able to help more families in the future.