The aim of the project COESI (Change Organization to Enable Social Inclusion) is to promote the social inclusion of people with intellectual disability on the basis of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). COESI specifically focuses on the learning of disability care organizations. These are mostly active in ambivalent structures; on the one hand they care for people with intellectual disabilities and, on the other hand, foster their inclusion into society. In order to be able to provide quality support for their users (people with intellectual disabilities) in the sense of inclusion in spite of this ambivalent assignment, society and users need a changed view. For this purpose the person-centred approach (person-centred planning – PCP) has been implemented some time ago. PCP implies a change in the disability care organizations, whose guiding principles are no longer derived from the institution but from the desires and needs of individual persons/users. In COESI activities are carried out and results are developed targeting on different levels and on different actors within disability care organizations. The respective groups of persons concerned are intensively involved in the various activities and project phases. These are on the one hand staff of disability care organizations (managers and executives and staff directly working with people with intellectual disabilities) and on the other hand people with intellectual disabilities. There will directly be involved 140 people (100 of staff and 40 of people with disabilities), whilst approximately another 1075 people benefit from the COESI project just during the project run. On the organisational level the Self-Assessment Tool for Social Inclusion (O1) targeting disability care organizations is being developed. The assessment tool supports disability care organizations to carry out a qualitative analysis on the state of art of social inclusion relevant to their particular organizational focus and individual services. Based on the assessment tool an Action plan for Social Inclusion (O3) is being developed which introduces strategies for disability care organizations at the interpersonal, organizational, social and socio-political level to enhance the social inclusion of people with disabilities. On the interpersonal level COESI focuses on two groups: people with intellectual disability and staff (managers and executives as well as care workers). On the one hand staff of disability care organisations is the core agent for social inclusion. Two seminaries are being developed which are to be seen as measures for the future and ongoing change processes in disability care organisations (Seminar for Managers and Executives – Curriculum and Trainer manual – O4, and Seminar for Disability Carers – Curriculum and Trainer Manual – O5). On the other hand people with intellectual disability are the beneficiaries of the whole work of disability care organisations. So there is an inevitable requirement to also educate them to gain better competencies in recognize and criticize the status of inclusion within the organizations they are cared of. To this reason COESI develops an Assessment tool for Users (Easy-to-read) (O2). Using this tool people with disability are able to assess the impact of the services they use with regard to social inclusion. It is a reflection tool that shows whether the service is a separating or an including one. Another output targeting people with intellectual disability is the Fit for Inclusion-Counsellor (Curriculum and trainer manual) and Easy-to-read material (O6). People with intellectual disability are being trained as experts on the topics of social inclusion that organizations are working on. They become counsellors inside and outside disability care organisations in terms of social inclusion. COESI contributes to the social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. Through the developed outputs disability care organizations gain the opportunity to self-assess themselves under indicators of social inclusion. They will be able to increase their flexibility in terms of being able to change their structures from institutionalized to more open and mobile structures. In this change a potential of higher sustainability (users get the support and services they really need), of higher effectiveness and therefor of better balanced use of resources (human, finances, time) is to expect. In future disability care organizations have to be prepared to step into a change process together with other social organizations to create new synergies and new models of services focusing on the person instead of the institution. COESI is one step towards this change.
The aim of the project COESI (Change Organization to Enable Social Inclusion) was to promote the social inclusion of people with intellectual disability on the basis of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). COESI specifically focused on the learning of disability care organizations. These are mostly active in ambivalent structures; on the one hand they care for people with intellectual disabilities and, on the other hand, foster their inclusion into society. In order to be able to provide quality support for their users (people with intellectual disabilities) in the sense of inclusion in spite of this ambivalent assignment, society and users need a changed view. For this purpose the person-centred approach (person-centred planning – PCP) has been implemented some time ago. PCP implies a change in the disability care organizations, whose guiding principles are no longer derived from the institution but from the desires and needs of individual persons/users. In COESI activities were carried out and results were developed targeting on different levels and on different actors within disability care organizations. The respective groups of persons concerned were intensively involved in the various activities and project phases. These were on the one hand staff of disability care organizations (managers and executives and staff directly working with people with intellectual disabilities) and on the other hand people with intellectual disabilities. There were directly involved about 150 people (100 of staff and 50 of people with disabilities), whilst approximately another 1075 people benefited from the COESI project just during the project run. Project results: Self-Assessment Tool for Social Inclusion Assessment tool for Users (Easy-to-read) Action plan for Social Inclusion Seminar for Managers and Executives Seminar for Support professionals Fit for Inclusion-Counsellor (Easy to read) On the organisational level the Self-Assessment Tool for Social Inclusion targeting disability care organizations was developed. The assessment tool supports disability care organizations to carry out a qualitative analysis on the state of art of social inclusion relevant to their particular organizational focus and individual services. Based on the assessment tool an Action plan for Social Inclusion was developed which introduces strategies for disability care organizations at the interpersonal, organizational, social and socio-political level to enhance the social inclusion of people with disabilities. On the interpersonal level COESI focused on two groups: people with intellectual disability and staff (managers and executives as well as care workers). On the one hand staff of disability care organisations was the core agent for social inclusion. Two seminaries were developed which can be seen as measures for the future and ongoing change processes in disability care organisations (Seminar for Managers and Executives – Curriculum and Trainer manual and Seminar for Disability Carers – Curriculum and Trainer Manual) . On the other hand people with intellectual disability were the beneficiaries of the whole work of disability care organisations. So there was an inevitable requirement to also educate them to gain better competencies in recognize and criticize the status of inclusion within the organizations they are cared of. To this reason COESI developed an Assessment tool for Users (Easy-to-read). Using this tool people with disability were able to assess the impact of the services they use with regard to social inclusion. It is a reflection tool that shows whether the service is a separating or an including one. Another output targeting people with intellectual disability was the Fit for Inclusion-Counsellor (Curriculum and trainer manual) and Easy-to-read material. People with intellectual disability could be trained as experts on the topics of social inclusion that organizations are working on. In this way they will be able to become counsellors inside and outside disability care organisations in terms of social inclusion. COESI contributed to the social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. Through the developed outputs disability care organizations gained the opportunity to self-assess themselves under indicators of social inclusion. They will be able to increase their flexibility in terms of being able to change their structures from institutionalized to more open and mobile structures. In this change a potential of higher sustainability (users get the support and services they really need), of higher effectiveness and therefor of better balanced use of resources is to expect. In future disability care organizations will be prepared to step into a change process together with other social organizations to create new synergies and new models of services focusing on the person instead of the institution. COESI was one step towards this change.