Background:Since the European Union has ratified the UN – CRPD, educational systems in Europe should become inclusive. Children and young adults, who need special support for attending educational institutions, are reliant on qualified staff. To give support, very different systems were established across Europe. The variety covers „care managers“ in Belgium with a well-defined qualification profile to „school assistants“ with no qualification profile in Austria. The different names for the services across Europe causes additionally confusion: “Teacher Assistant”, “Special Educational Needs Assistant”, “School Assistant”, “Learning Support Assistant” and so on. Aims:To help realising the aims of the European Union to implement the demands of the UN-CRPD, it needs a transnational cooperation on European level, about the nature of services in the field of assistance in inclusive educational institutions, based on inclusive values, inclusive structures and inclusive practices. Furthermore these activities should lead to a common specification of the services in the field of assistance, taking into account, that systems of providing assistance vary across Europe. As future prospects it will be necessary to develop a common qualification profile and a curriculum to further educate practitioners in the field of assistance.Partners:There a four different types of partners participating in the project, also representing different levels and approaches concerning inclusive, educational systems:- The Austrian school system offers different support systems in kindergarten and school for pupils threatened by exclusion but concerning the assistance, the system is not standardised and unclear in its definition.- In Bulgaria, the confrontation with the demands of UN-CRPD just started, our Bulgarian partner is the first and only provider of services in the field of assistance in regular school system. Also Portugal and Slovakia are at the beginning of the process.- Our partner from UK is expert on inclusive development and has published several tools and recommandations on inclusive development for educational institutions.-EASPD as umbrella organisation of more than 10.000 social service providers across Europe, located in Brussels, is an experienced partner for dissemination of project results and is cross-linked with social service providers, universities, as well as in European policy.Activities:There will be three partner meetings during the project:1st Meeting:- Exchange of good pratices and the current situation in the partner countries and development of an analysis framework with dimensions and fields of activities, to develop a specification for the services in the field of assistance2nd Meeting:-Development of a transnational, universal specification of services in the field of assistance3rd Meeting:-Finalising the specification of services in the field of assistance and reflection about necessary country-specific adaptionsIn every partner country, one round table with experts and stakeholders during the runtime of the project will be organised, on one hand to discuss and reflect the actual progress in the project and on the other hand to disseminate the ideas and outcomes of the project.In a five days training activity for assistants actually working in the field, a common understanding for the transition process toward an inclusive educational system in general and in particular for services in the field of assistance will be worked out through the support of international experts. Furthermore the specification of the services in the field of assistance will be reflected with persons working daily in the field or are directly affected. Outputs:-Transnational, universal specification of services in the field of assistance, adapted to the situation in the partner countries in English language-SWOT analysis and description of the current status of the systems of services in the field of assistance for every partner country-Workshop design of the training activity in English, orientated to NQF respectivly EQF criteria- At least 20 participants at the "training activity"- At least 60 participants at the round tables in the partner countriesFollow up:The partners in the project, depending on a positive development in the actual project, plan a follow-up project to develop a qualification for assistants working in the field. The preparations for this follow-up will be done paralell to the actual activities in this project with the aim to hand in an application in the Erasmus Plus Programme in spring 2017.If it is not possible to establish a follow-up, the partners will try to find partners for realising a qualification (universities, teacher-training colleges, providers of adult education) after the end of the project in the partner countries.
Background Since the EU and all member states have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the European educational systems have to become inclusive. All children and young people should be able to rely on professional staff to enable their learning and participation in school. For children and young people with disabilities, non-teaching staff (learning support assistants, teaching assistants,..) play a vital role in enabling them to successfully engage in every aspect of compulsory and post compulsory education. Objectives The project “Improving Assistance in Inclusive Educational Settings” (IMAS) focused on the education of children and young people with disabilities in Europe, with the aim of establishing a common framework for scrutinising how assistance is organised in schools. The main objectives of the project were to understand the contribution of assistance services to inclusive education for children and young people with disabilities, to develop recommendations for the further development of these services and (if necessary) to enhance them through the project activities. Partnership CHANCE B (Austria, Coordinator) is a social service provider operating in the Eastern part of Styria, offering support to every person who needs it to live well in the region. CSIE-Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education (UK) is a national charity that works to promote equality and eliminate discrimination in education. TENENET o.z. (Slovakia) was established as a social and psychological advisory centre helping disabled clients, children in social need and youth with behavior problems. ARCIL (Portugal) provides a wide range of services in the rehabilitation field for children, young people and adults with disability or other special needs. VISION-Agency for social development (Bulgaria) is specialised as a service provider in the area of culture and social development. EASPD-European Association of Service providers for Persons with Disabilities is a non-profit European umbrella organization and currently representing over 12000 social and health services for persons with disabilities. Activities At the beginning of the project the partners systematically surveyed the current state of assistance services in their countries (Status Quo Report). These surveys yielded an overview of the different systems. They also enabled partners to formulate recommendations for the role of learning and support assistants in inclusive education on a European level. Another main activity was a five-day training event involving assistants, teachers, education experts, parents and former pupils from the countries of all project organisations. The participants of this training discussed the recommendations, shared experiences and worked on scrutinising processes of inclusive education in their national context and developing a set of improvement suggestions as relevant. Subsequently all partners developed a set of recommendations specific to their country, based on the general recommendations already developed at European level. At the end of the project all partners organised and held stakeholder meetings to disseminate the national recommendations among decision makers in the education system and at all levels of policy and administration. All project activities were based on a participative, practical approach and involved as many assistants, pupils and stakeholders as possible. Results - Description of the current status of assistance services in each partner country - Summary in a Status-Quo Report covering all partner countries - Recommendations for the role of learning and support assistants in inclusive education, at European level - Recommendations for the role of learning and support assistants in inclusive education at national level for each participating country - Training Activity Workshop Design - 23 participants at the training activity - 157 participants at the stakeholder meetings - Dissemination of the project results through different channels Longer-term benefits This project has set an important first step to draw attention to assistance services at European and National level, on the understanding that these play an important role in developing a more inclusive education system consistent with the requirements of the UNCRPD. The project has clearly demonstrated that there are no clear and consistent frameworks for availability, quality and responsibilities of learning and support assistants in schools and other educational settings. The project has also shown that in some regions of Europe the possibility of making assistance services routinely available to children with disabilities does not exist. It is anticipated that the recommendations developed during this project will provide orientation for decision makers and assist them in further developing assistance services in their countries, in ways which are consistent with the requirements of the UNCRPD