The strategic partnership "the inclusion perspective" organises activities aimed specifically at considering language and communication from an angle of inclusion education. It is the idea behind the partnership to find synergies and interfaces between existing communication enhancing methods from non-formal education and alternative types of communication aid from special education. Currently those methods exist only separate from one another. This merger shall form a basis for new, innovative approaches. It has become apparent from various past projects and trainings focused on inclusion education that language and communication are crucial drivers for success in international programs. Those give young people the opportunity to get in touch with each other and they build a bridge for active participation. For this reason it seems of importance to the organisers to develop and approach this crucial element in encounters of international youth from the perspective of inclusion education. The two year strategic partnership "the inclusion perspective" shall revise existing communication enhancing approaches as well as search for new possibilities and approaches that may encourage and plan better for language and communication to be utilised from a perspective of inclusion education. In this manner it is also possible to dismantle another barrier, one that hinders access for youth with disabilities to non-formal education. At conclusion of the strategic partnership two high quality products shall be established: - a methodical didactic handbook, which offers methods to promote communication (language animation, etc) for inclusion groups and one which addresses specialists in working with youth. - a guide for specialists in youth work, that looks at the topic of language and communication from the perspective of inclusion and one that shall aim to give trainers and other specialists important impulses within their work. Both publications shall be made available online in electronic form. They will appear in the German, Polish and English language. The guide shall also be released and published in printed format by the BHP Verlag. The partners of the project are six NGOs, firms, associations and establishments for people with disabilities. All persons participating in the project have special knowledge and relevant experience in the work with language and communication. At the same time all those competences are distributed over different fields. The strategic partnership has a binational partner setting (German-Polish). It seems important to us not to work with too many languages when we deal with the topic of language and communication. We view the binational partnership as an opportunity to develop good results and further develop those via international partnerships in the future. The partnership is planning eight project meetings in total, all of which shall take place in different locations around Germany and Poland every three months. The project shall conclude with two final event one in Germany and the other in Poland, on which the final developed products shall be presented.
The Strategic Partnership (SP) "Perspective: Inclusion" (English title was modified during the SP) organised activities aimed specifically at considering language and communication (LuC) from an angle of inclusion education. The idea behind the SP was to find synergies and interfaces between existing communication enhancing methods from non-formal education, and alternative types of communication support from special education. At the beginning of the SP, those methods existed only separately from one another. This merger should form the basis for new and innovative approaches. The starting point was the knowledge of how crucial the topic of LuC is for success in international education programs. These programs give young people the opportunity to get in touch with each other, and offers the possibility of active participation for them. For this reason, it seems of importance for the organisers to develop and approach this crucial element in international education programs, from the perspective of inclusion. During the SP the partners revised existing communication enhancing approaches, as well as searched for new possibilities and approaches that may encourage and prepare better for LuC to be utilised from a perspective of inclusion education. In this manner, the partners aimed to develop educational materials that dismantle another barrier, one that hinders access for young people with disabilities and fewer possibilities for non-formal education. Now, at the conclusion of the SP the partners have established 2 high quality products (intellectual outputs O1 and O2), which were published in one file. The first output is a lexicon, a methodical didactic handbook. The authors examined the key aspects of international meetings, providing examples and presenting a wealth of methods and guidelines for non-formal education designed to support the communication process when working with inclusive groups. The second output describes a selection of innovative educational approaches and best practices aimed to facilitate mutual contact and communication within such groups. Here the authors worked together with practitioners from the partner’s network, who are actively supporting and developing inclusive education approaches. After discussing common experiences and main points the authors and the project team developed together specialist articles to share the important experiences from the network, and to give important impulses for the target group of this publication. The publication is intended for professionals working in the area of non-formal education for young people; youth workers, special educators, teachers and all those interested in the role of language in shaping social reality and promoting barrier-free communication in their practice. When the project started, the idea was to publish two separated products O1 and O2. While the project was on-going and both products became more concrete, the authors decided to publish the products together in one publication. In both products, there are so many links between the different articles and inputs, that the whole publication should be considered as a whole, even though in contains O1 and O2. The publication is available online as a pdf file. It has been translated into DE and PL(as those are the partner languages) and additionally in English to reach a bigger, international target group, and with this to spread this inclusive education approach over Europe. There will be no published version, as the budget did not have funds for publishing. Nevertheless, we strongly believe that the electronic form will reach a large coverage and in designing the layout, we considered the possibility to print the publication. All partners have also printed editions in all languages to take the publication to conferences, meetings and trainings, to promote interest in the online access. The SP brought together 6 organisations in a cross-sectoral cooperation. 3 from Germany, the Kreisau-Initiative (project coordinator), the Brücke/Most Foundation, and designer Consulting: 3 from Poland, the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe, Special School Complex in Oława, and Kulturanima. The persons contributed to the SP as representatives of the partner organisations and all had special knowledge and competences in the area. They all had considerable relevant experience in the different topics which have been crucial for the process and the products of the strategic partnership. The SP has a bi-national partner setting (DE-PL). It seemed important to us not to work with too many languages when we deal with the topic of language– which has shown to be correct in the end. During the project, the partner met in 8 transnational project meetings in PL and DE. The project concluded with 2 multiplier events , where the products were presented to the public. Both events had a practical workshop on "DanceAbility" to show one approach the book is highlighting.