The EU and its member states are all committed to a policy of de-institutionalisation (DI) and the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (UNCRPD) and the EU’s own 2020 Disability Strategy. DI is a challenging policy and the 4 main partner nations in this project (FI/RO/HU/UK) are at different stages along the way. They have come together to share their experiences and learning and to promote the idea that people with disabilities are ‘experts by experience’ and can, with appropriate help, contribute to the task of retraining staff and residents of institutions in the process of moving out into community based settings. The STEPS project (Sharing The European Pathways) provides 2-3 hour long training sessions covering a range of things staff and residents will need to do differently when they move out if the new service is to be based on the UNCRPD principles such as rights, inclusion, choice and independence and not the old ‘medical model’ of care where ‘nurse knows best and just do as you are told and we will get along just fine.’ The partners are all either heavily involved in DI processes and/or in the provision of staff training for those working with a disability. A Belgian partner has a dedicated evaluation role. The training materials are all derived from current training packages in the UK & FI, but have been re-fashioned to meet the specific need of this project to provide tailored training opportunities to groups with particular needs. An additional aspect of this project is the use of ‘co-trainers’ (who are people with disabilities themselves) as one half of a co-training partnership to train staff, residents and their families/ friends. Not all STEPS training session will require a co-trainer, but experience has shown that using a co-trainer can make a big impact on staff being trained. Co-trainers will be coached and given support to fulfil their role. We hope this will be the start of wider use of co-trainers. Materials will be made freely available in ‘universal’ format in English (ie with no reference to any one country, institution or place etc) and they will be ‘localised’ by partners so they will look and feel like a local document, with recognisable local names, places, laws etc. ‘Easy Read’ versions of relevant documents will be available. The training sessions deal with both practical matters from the point of view of residents, their families and staff – such as; handling personal and household money, doing the shopping and the cooking, keeping the house clean, getting on with the neighbours etc and also more attitudinal/philosophical matters – such as: who is ‘in charge’ in ‘my’ home? Are staff ‘carers’ or enablers? What do we do about people taking risks? We will collect feedback from all the training sessions and from manager of services where STEPS training has taken place. There will be two cycles of training to allow for review and revision of the materials and methods used. Co-training partnerships will be supported by a number of senior trainers who will all have attended an intensive 5 day training course to learn the materials thoroughly. We will seek formal approval for the STEPS training from the relevant bodies. We hope that the results will be staff who are better trained and supported to fulfil their new role and work in a new manner, seeing themselves as supporting someone to ‘get a life’ in the community, rather then caring for them and controlling every aspect of their lives. We hope people with disabilities who moved out and their families will begin to see changes in the way staff work and will themselves come to realise that people with disabilities have the right to live as near normal lives as possible in the community. With the right kind of support, many can do this and the job of enabling them do this and seeing them blossom into full rounded characters is very rewarding for all concerned. DI is not easy to do well. Changing the attitudes of staff who have worked in an institution and the residents who have lived there is not easy either. STEPS will provide those charged with delivering on DI with more effective tools for making this change.
Since every EU member state is committed to implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, it follows that every country will be looking to close down the old-fashioned institutions and move people (and staff) out in community based services. It is crucial to empower the PwD in order to reach their full potential and achieve full participation in the society. Also a demanding challenge alongside is to form the attitude of the supporters around them. STEPS project was set up to deliver a training method what effectively able to influence both. STEPS project main objectives were helping the transition and everybody who might get involved the process: people preparing to move out, those who have moved out, staff supporting them, the families and friends. The partnership built up from five partners in different stage of the deinstitutionalisation for Sharing the European Pathways with each other. The coordinator was the Hungarian Hand in Hand Foundation specialised in educational social care and training projects and supports the Hungarian efforts to de–institutionalise its national care services. Fundatia Alpha Transilvana (FAT) is the Romanian partner what is a major service provider in Transylvania. Kehitysvammaisten Palvelusaatio from Finland has a long-term history of innovation in service delivery and experience of training staff whilst closing down large institutionalised services. Social Care Training is the UK partner in the project. It specialises in learning disability services and staff training. inproof is our Belgian partner. It covers monitoring and quality control and valuates the project. The project had created 13 Intellectual Outputs which contain 5 universal materials, 5 localised materials with country specific contents and 3 evaluation reports on each year and manager’ feedbacks. The training materials are not just the usual training materials. An important new element (among many) is the role of the ‘co-trainer’. This is someone with a learning disability who has been trained to act as a co-trainer alongside another trainer in delivering the STEPS training materials. Not all the modules need a co-trainer, but where this is appropriate we use the skills and insights of co-trainers. The training is designed for use in the actual workplace. The materials are all broken up into roughly 3 hour training sessions in small modules clustered around a specific topic which they will need to cope with when living in the community (e.g. managing money). This means that all the materials can be accessed within a single shift by staff or residents with relative ease. The training materials had been tried and tested on two short term joint staff teaching/training activities and on two training cycles in partner countries and they really work. De-institutionalisation is a long process involving many challenges for people with disabilities, staff and families. Changing attitudes and opening up minds to different ways of supporting people to move out of institutions and live in the community is a long-term task.