Welcome to the website of the European Interprofessional Education Network in health and social care. EIPEN aims to develop and sustain a network in the EU to share and develop effective interprofessional training curricula, methods and materials for improving collaborative practice and multi agency working in health and social care. The EIPEN partnership was started in 2004 with partners in Greece, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Sweden and the UK. In 2005 we obtained two years funding from the EU Leonardo da Vinci Programme. In 2008 we had additional funding from the EU Lifelong Learning Erasmus Programme to expand the partnership to Ireland, Belgium, and Slovenia. We want to further develop the network and focus on quality assurance. EIPEN is coordinated by the UK Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Health Sciences and Practice at King’s College London University. We will continue to link to organisations outside education and expand our stakeholder base. Please contact us if you would like to join. Currently we are preparing a proposal for a European Thematic Network 2010-2012. The network focuses on interprofessional education (IPE) in health and social care because this is of international interest, and a specific concern of partners. Although IPE has been strongly advocated as improving interprofessional care and integrated services since the early 1970s by the World Health Organisation, and there is a growing body of evidence of its effectiveness, there remain significant questions concerning its implementation. These questions include the management of interprofessional learning and logistics, the preparation of teachers and mentors in the workplace, the mix of disciplines and transferability of learning, and resistance from established hierarchical uni-professional training programmes. Partners’ experience with other collaborations leads them to believe that sharing problems and solutions across borders will expand and improve IPE in partner countries. ________________________________________________________________________ This project has been funded by the European Commission (75% of the budget). The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained on this website. ___________________________________________________________________________ |
