Initiated by organizations from Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Germany and Spain the “ICF-CY as a basis for care to improve training opportunities for children with special educational needs” adult education strategic partnership focuses on increasing the knowledge, competences and use of ICF-CY of the psychologists and special educators in schools, centers and private practices, in the effort to support children with SEN, underlined at European level by the Education and Training 2020 Strategic Framework and the Council conclusions on the social dimension of education and training.The scope of this project is to provide psychologists and special educators form 5 European countries with helpful methodology and tools for their daily work with children aged 6-12 years with Special Educational Needs (SEN), namely with Autism / autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) or Specific Learning difficulty (SpLD) in assessing the children's capabilities; setting the targets of therapy and evaluating the results achieved by creating a tool in the form of a questionnaire and a card for following the achievements. The main objectives of the project are:1. To develop an innovative methodology for the adult specialists in schools, centers and private practices working in addressing the common issue of SEN for children aged 6-12 across 5 European countries, 2. To design 2 practical e-tools for psychologists and special educators to assess the opportunities, needs and the daily therapeutic work with children with ASD and SpLD, to be implemented and tested for 2 years in the 5 partner countries.3. To increase by 25% the competences of groups of at least 60 psychologists and educators working with special needs children, by guiding them to select the appropriate pedagogical approach in working with children during the project implementation.By providing a solid methodology and innovative tools, the transition from the “medical perspective” to the “social” understanding of the problem is ensured in order to help psychologists and special educators overcome the problems in addressing the needs of this group of children.In conclusion, with the help of the project , special need children will be offered high quality support services as a consequence of benefitting from improved competences of the trained staff on the topic. For this, the projects facilitates access to standardized instruments to be used in the daily practical activities of the psychologists and special educators in order to accurately decide on the appropriate pedagogical course of action to help children overcome difficulties and better integrate in the society.
The project was initiated by 5 organizations from: Romania-Save the Children Branch Dolj, a non-governmental, democratic, independent, non-profit, non-political and non-religious organization,whose mission is to promote and defend children’s rights, Bulgaria-The First National Dyslexia Center, whose main scope of activities focuses on special pedagogy and, in particular, on specific learning difficulties,Turkey-Silifke MEM, an umbrella organisation which stands on the behalf of Turkey Ministry of National Education, a non-profit public body, responsible for preparation, application and evaluation of all kinds of educational training activities for all age ranges, Germany - Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nuremberg, Innovation in Learning Institute, a central research institute at the University of Erlangen, developing, implementing and evaluating integrated pedagogical and technological concepts for promoting technology enhanced learning adapted to the needs of different target groups like pupils, students, student-teachers teachers, seniors, handicapped and Spain - The University of Valencia, Polibienestar Research Institute, a public research institute specialized in research, innovation and social technology, technical advice and training in the field of public policies.This adult education strategic partnership focused on increasing the knowledge, competences and use of the WHO document - the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: Children and Youth version (ICF-CY) of the psychologists and special educators in schools, centers and private practices, in the effort to support children with special educational needs. Starting from this, the scope of this project was to provide psychologists, teachers and special educators form 5 European countries helpful methodology and tools for their daily work with children aged 6-12 years with special educational needs (SEN), namely with autism/autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) or specific learning difficulties (SpLD), in assessing the children's capabilities, setting the targets of therapy and evaluating the results achieved.The main objectives of the project: 1.To develop an innovative methodology for the adult specialists in schools, centers and private practices working in addressing the common issue of SEN for children aged 6-12 across 5 European countries, 2.To design two practical e-tools for psychologists, teachers and special educators, to assess the opportunities, needs and daily therapeutic work with children with SEN, to be implemented and tested for 2 years in the 5 partner countries. 3.To develop the competences of groups of psychologists, teachers and educators working with SEN children in selecting an appropriate pedagogical approach during the project implementation. The activities carried out within the project were divided into three main phases: 1. Preparation: after the project was approved, a consortium agreement contained main information related to: reporting procedures, working plan, payment plan. 2. Implementation: the main activity was the design and creation of the outputs foreseen. 3. Management and organizational activities (communication, dissemination, time and budget control). Results and impact: - innovative methodology and tools for specialists in schools, centers and private practices which offered deep knowledge in accurately evaluating the special needs children and improved work methodology by familiarization with useful tools to facilitate the process of integration in schools; - a Short-term joint staff training event involving specialists from 3 countries (except Germany) was held by the partner from Bg where the materials created were tested and evaluated and the competences of an international group who was part of the activities that followed, developed. The partner from Germany organised separately, at local level, in November 2018, the same training activities; - pilot activities were organized under the form of workshops for teachers, psychologists and special educators where the materials created were tested and evaluated in order to check their relevance and applicability; - workshops were organised for specialists to present and test the tools, in order to integrate the outputs into their usual work; - a Multiplier Event was organized by the coordinator for both national and foreign participants to multiply the outputs created and its target audience was not only people responsible for further, higher and adult education, but also policy makers and public authorities. Providing general information about the project, new tools, methodology and perspectives, pilot activities and good practices examples, the project improved the working methods of teachers confronted with the difficulty of daily issues in teaching children with special needs integrated in mass schools. Both psychologists and teachers gained deep knowledge in accurately evaluating the special needs children.