Refugees and migrants may face a number of challenges to accessing health care, including language and cultural differences, institutional discrimination and restricted use of health services, which shape their interactions with the host country’s health system and health workforce. The health workforce has a vital role in providing people-centred health services and building the resilience of health systems to respond to the health needs of refugees and migrants. This requires health workers with specific competencies.
On the margin of International Migrants Day 2021 and at the closure of International Year of Health and Care Workers 2021, WHO is launching Refugee and migrant health: Global Competency Standards for health workers (the Global Competency Standards) with a high-level webinar on 16 December from 14:00 to 15:00 CET.
The Global Competency Standards highlight the competencies and behaviours needed to provide high-quality health services to refugees and migrants with the aim to support the development of competency-based curricula tailored to the local context and for health workers to achieve a minimum level of competence to ensure better health outcomes for refugees and migrants.
The Standards are accompanied by a Knowledge Guide for health workers and health administrators and a Curriculum Guide for educational institutions. The Knowledge Guide identifies the foundational knowledge, skills and attitudes for the Global Competency Standards. The Curriculum Guide sets out considerations and options to deliver and assess competency-based learning outcomes of health workers at different stages in their career development. These have been adapted from the Global Competency and Outcomes Framework for Universal Health Coverage.
The Standards and the two Guides have been developed by the Health and Migration Programme in close collaboration with the Health Workforce Department. It is the first set of its kind to be produced for health workers who provide health services to refugees and migrants as well as for educational institutions to incorporate these standards and foundational knowledge and skills into health worker training.
Objective of the webinar
The high-level webinar aims to present the Global Competency Standards, the Knowledge Guide and the Curriculum Guide for health workers. The webinar will explore the challenges faced by the health workforce in providing refugee- and migrant-sensitive health services, and the role of strengthening the health workforce through competency-based training to ensure better health outcomes for refugees and migrants.
Target audience
The webinar is open to everyone but is particularly aimed at policymakers, health sector managers, Ministries of Health, Education, academic institutions, educators, and other key stakeholders.
Additional information
The development of the Global Competency Standards for health workers was informed by a multi-country review and a literature review, respectively “Mapping health systems' responsiveness to refugee and migrant health needs”, and “Common health needs of refugees and migrants: a literature review” to support countries and territories worldwide in building health system capacity and resilience to provide quality people-centred health services for all, including for refugees and migrants.