Ms Susanne Sevin has been the manager of “LOTUS”

SOSU Interviews “Lotus”, a multi-ethnic nursing home in Aarhus, Denmark

All partners in the I-CARE project have been carrying out interviews in the social and health care sector to get a better understanding of intercultural competences needed by staff in order to be able to care for all patients effectively.

The interviews undertaken the Danish partner, SOSU, involved contact with management and staff at the care home LOTUS in Aarhus.

For SOSU, it was on eye-opener to see in practice how you can benefit from employing a multicultural staff for care tasks. Here, cultural diversity is regarded a strength and taken into account, for example by organising the work schedules, so the staff at duty are multicultural both day, evening and night - just like the persons in need of care. Cultural and linguistic competences are shared and challenges related to language, culture, religion and ethnic background are discussed openly. Small elements of foreign culture are integrated in daily routines such as serving Turkish tea, Arabic sweets and offering international breakfast and different habits in the intimate field, for example, toilet habits are respected.

Approximately half of the 55 employees have non-Danish background and among these, 12 different nationalities are represented.

Ms Susanne Serin (above) has been the manager of “LOTUS” since 2008. She is born in Denmark but has a Turkish background as her parents moved to Denmark in the 60’ies.