[New Directions in Elderly Care Workforce Nurturing: Cross-Professional Collaboration From a Social Co-Care Perspective, Drawing Insights From Japan's Elderly Care Experience]

The increasingly severe issue of societal aging worldwide has prompted the reevaluation of elderly-care strategies and related workforce development. This paper was developed to explore new directions in elderly care workforce development from the perspective of social co-care. The current state and challenges of elderly care personnel in Taiwan are analyzed, emphasizing the importance of cross-professional collaboration to enhancing elderly care quality. Cross-professional collaboration models and training systems currently used in Japan are examined with the goal of identifying how these models and systems as well as practice experiences may benefit and help improve Taiwan's current elderly care system. The future goal is to elevate the academic qualifications and skills of care workers, foster their professional ethics and competencies, strengthen their interprofessional collaboration abilities, and improve their autonomy and professional identity. Ultimately, a clear career advancement pathway should be established to ensure care workers play a leading role within the geriatric care team.