Older patients leave your clinic with multiple chronic conditions and no support at home. Family caregivers are exhausted. Formal pensions do not exist. This free primer helps health and humanitarian workers understand and respond to the specific challenges of ageing in their communities. Health and humanitarian workers in over 137 countries participate in The Geneva Learning Foundation’s programmes.
Who is this for?
This course is for nurses, community health workers, and primary care staff who see older patients regularly. If you manage a clinic where older adults make up a growing share of your caseload but your training never addressed ageing, this course is for you. It welcomes all experience levels, from new health workers to senior practitioners.
What you will learn and do
- Three colleagues from other countries read your reflection on how older adults experience care in your community. They tell you what they see differently. You do the same for three of theirs.
- Analyze how older adults, men and women, move through your health system: who receives care, who does not, and what determines the difference.
- Identify one practical action you can take this week to better support an older patient you see regularly.
- Apply the World Health Organization’s framework for healthy ageing to your local context and name what is working and what is missing.
- Map what family caregivers carry alone in your community and what would reduce that burden.
How the course works
The course uses short, text-based readings that work on any phone with low bandwidth. You complete a reflection activity on ageing in your community. Three colleagues from other countries review your work and suggest what they would do differently. You review three of theirs. The full primer takes about two hours per week. It is the first course in The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Certificate peer learning programme on ageing and society.
Your certificate
You will earn a certificate from The Geneva Learning Foundation. The certificate documents the work you produced in the course, your reflection and your practical action plan, not just your participation.
How to register
Go to https://go.learning.foundation/tglf/c/31663/ and click the Enroll button to create a free account on The Geneva Learning Foundation’s learning platform. Registration is free and takes less than five minutes.
