International Longevity Centre Global Alliance - Designing the Future of Ageing

12th May 2025

Charlotte van den Eijnde studies how real-life care experiences help students and professionals grow morally. Her research connects theory and practice through reflection, collaboration, and storytelling in care education.

What can healthcare professionals learn from their everyday experiences? In her project “Learning from Experiences”, Charlotte van den Eijnde explores how moral issues in care contribute to the development of both students and professionals.

As a scientific researcher at Leyden Academy, Charlotte van den Eijnde focuses on the moral development of healthcare professionals. With a background as an occupational therapist and sociologist, she emphasizes the importance of addressing the ethical dilemmas that caregivers face daily.

“Healthcare professionals are constantly dealing with questions about what the right thing to do is,” Van den Eijnde explains. “These ‘moral’ questions aren’t just about big themes like life and death, but are often found in everyday situations. For example: what do I say to a resident who keeps asking about her deceased husband? Or: how do I give someone who frequently falls enough freedom?”

Research shows that taking time to reflect on such experiences is essential for both the quality of care and the job satisfaction of caregivers.

In this project, Van den Eijnde, together with Marianne Schouwstra (project leader of the Learning House at mboRijnland), explores how working with real-life internship experiences can support the moral development of nursing students. These experiences bring the perspectives, dilemmas, and values of care practice to life. By placing these experiences at the center of education, students can learn to:

• Deal more consciously with ethical dilemmas
• Better respond to complex situations in care
• Become more confident in their professional role

The Learning House: Where Theory and Practice Come Together

The research takes place within the Learning House of mboRijnland, an innovative learning environment that combines theory and practice at one location. Students attend both practical training and theoretical classes within the same care institution. This approach creates a strong link between theory and practice, making it an ideal setting for research and the development and evaluation of innovative learning methods.

The unique structure of the Learning House offers several advantages:

• A direct link between practice and theory, allowing students to bring real-life experiences into the classroom
• Time and space for reflection, where students discuss moral dilemmas with teachers and mentors
• Flexibility in the curriculum, enabling the immediate application of new methods and insights

The Central Role of Home Care

Van den Eijnde has gained experience as a researcher not only in nursing homes but also in home care. “What stayed with me most is how essential home care is. Home care professionals are often the central figures in the lives of people in the neighborhood. The care relationship often lasts for years, during which they become an important part of the person’s support network.”

She describes working in home care as complex and multifaceted: “You collaborate with informal caregivers and other professionals, you’re there for someone who feels lonely or just wants to talk, you help with household tasks, and you also perform medical procedures. The essence is working from the relationship with the person. That’s how you really contribute to someone’s sense of happiness at home.”

This experience helped inspire the video series Thuisgeluk (“Home Happiness”), which captures around twenty authentic situations of older adults receiving home care. The short videos — each under two minutes — show examples of loving care and are intended to inspire and be used in education.

Building a Resilient Care Sector

By supporting students in their moral development, we hope to build a generation of care professionals well-equipped for the complex challenges of the job. “This not only boosts their resilience and self-confidence but also contributes to a sustainable care sector where professionals want to stay,” says Van den Eijnde.

Her PhD research specifically focuses on the use of practical experiences for moral learning. She investigates how moral learning takes shape in practice and, more importantly, what practical tools can be derived to promote moral learning in care and education.

This project is a collaboration between the Wellbeing and Care practoraat of MBO Rijnland and Leyden Academy, made possible with funding from the Jo Visser Fund. The Learning House is a partnership between Zorgpartners Midden-Holland and the CIV Welzijn & Zorg.

Would you like to know more about this project or are you interested in the methods? Please contact Charlotte van den Eijnde: eijnde@leydenacademy.nl