The OPEN joint project between Hochschule RheinMain (coordinator), Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences and the Catholic University of Applied Sciences Mainz is opening up new approaches to integrated care planning for older people with an immigrant background by incorporating the specific communication networks of ethnic communities. Together with selected care support centers from the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse as well as other practice partners, culturally sensitive advice and support approaches are being developed on the basis of research. At the same time, the aim is to improve cooperation between care professionals based on network analysis, both among themselves and, above all, with the forms of family and neighborhood care arrangements that are particularly pronounced among immigrants, in order to counteract the threat of social isolation of those involved.

In this way, OPEN aims to develop, test and scientifically evaluate social space-specific approaches to intercultural opening of care counseling in conjunction with case management-based, integrated assistance and support planning with regard to domestic care arrangements to avoid social isolation in the event of a need for care and at the same time to strengthen and support relatives and voluntary work.

• The approaches to intercultural opening are developed in future workshops at four different study locations in Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate with the participation of those affected, in order to arrive at milieu- and institution-specific generalizations via a comparative reconstruction.
  
• Corresponding "portal techniques" are evaluated as part of a standardized survey.
  
• The practical formative evaluation of the new counseling approaches developed with the WPK partners is designed as a grounded theory-based supervision.
  
• The care management concepts developed in relation to the social environment are evaluated responsively on a case-by-case basis and in terms of regional network analysis.
  
• All concepts tailored to the different life situations and lifestyles of older immigrants will be implemented in qualification modules for further and continuing education and will be tested and evaluated as examples over the course of the project.