ECC - Our vision

The European Care Certificate (ECC) is the first small step towards ensuring the consistently high quality of social care services across the EU. We do this by creating agreed definitions of what staff entering social care services for the first time need to know as a minimum to work in the social care sector in any member country of the EU.  These definitions are called Basic Learning Outcomes and they are the main content of the ECC.

 The ECC is not a qualification in itself, but we hope to see many training courses demonstrate how they cover the ECC Learning Outcomes. Those courses could come from universities, training organisations, schools and employers in every country and will promote a common EU-wide understanding of the values and quality we should find in social care services.

   Later we hope to build on this first step with the further development of additional commonly agreed definitions of knowledge for staff whose job demands more experience and responsibility. This will take the ECC beyond the current entry level we are developing and could link it in to vocational and/or professional qualifications in some member countries.

   The ECC will help workers find work in other countries and provide them with information on what ‘additional’ training each country might require (e.g. first aid, or handling medication).  It will also help employers because they will know what a worker from another country with an ECC compliant qualification has already learned.
     They will be more confident in employing them because the worker has already covered the basic knowledge and principles involved in social care work.

Click here to download The European Care Certificate - the starter pack

Click here to download the European Care Cerificate - french version