There is compelling evidence that people with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems are at risk of social exclusion. This is due to causes like the fact that intellectually disabled people (IDP) often experience difficulties and psychological barriers in accessing public places and that communities demonstrates low levels of attention to the idea of inclusiveness when referred to IDP (while there has been more focus on accessibility referred to physical disability). At the same time there is an increasing need for their educators, therapists and social workers to integrate ICT-based supports in their daily work and to increase their competences in this field. Starting form this, MIND INCLUSION 2.0 wants to leverage from an idea of a local Italian project named “Dovevado.eu” started in 2015, and create new ways to foster social inclusion through the use of ICT. The main objective of MIND INCLUSION 2.0 is to foster the competencies of educators of IDP across Europe to promote the participative co-creation and use of an innovative web platform supported by the definition of a solid facilitation methodology which will contribute to the sustainable and inclusive involvement of disabled people in the society. Based on EU’s Europe 2020 goal to create smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, the Article 26 of EU Charter, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Erasmus plus KA2 objectives in the field of adult education the project aims at: - Enhancing cooperation and sharing experience among organizations working with IDP in EU; - Improving digital competences of IDP and their educators fostering the use of the web platform and an independent and inclusive life style; - Developing and sharing successful methodologies and practices (including co-design approach with IDP) to define and build inclusive communities across Europe. The project will involve 16 educators and about 50 IDP across 4 countries (Italy, Spain, Lithuania and France), touching approximately 300 stakeholders. The main activities will include: - The realization of two intensive trainings for educators of IDP about co-design of accessible web-tools and promotion of community inclusiveness through a new methodology based on participatory design. - The co-design and development, at European level, of a web-based platform fully accessible by people with intellectual disabilities. The web platform will allow gathering information about public places that are keen and sensible to IDP and their caregivers. Such information will be gathered with a user-generated content approach, where the target group and their caregivers can directly feed the website content with personal experience and reviews. - The development of a facilitation methodology (and related guidelines) to support usage of the platform for IDP and their integration process at community level, as well as the promotion of inclusive communities. - The promotion of activities, results and outcomes at international level through dissemination activities. The innovation relies on the use of a participatory approach and the adoption of agile methodologies for a truly user-centered co-design process and constant involvement of all the potential stakeholders – disabled people and caregivers – in the design, development and testing stages. This will be done by building a network of active stakeholders (or local action groups) that will support the participatory design through a set of small scale data collection pilots. Moreover, these local groups will participate also in the promotion of the platform and fostering of communities inclusiveness by supporting the pilot experience of the MIND INCLUSION facilitation methodology. The project will have strong impacts on participants’ educators in terms of increased competences related to ICT skills and the ability to foster IDP social inclusion. At the same time involved IDP will have the possibility to increase their ICT skills, as well as their relational competencies. Moreover, the project will promote their empowerment and allow an increase in their quality of life. Involved organization will have an extraordinary possibility to develop and disseminate new innovative approaches for addressing people with intellectual disability and favour training of their educators, reinforcing at the same time cooperation and management skills. Finally, the most concrete impact will be the increase of inclusion levels of IDP in their communities. While at the national and international level the project will have the possibility to influence public authorities, increase their awareness on the issue of disability and promote rights of IDP and the adoption of new innovative policies. Finally, thanks to the project, we will soften the boundaries between local and international dimension, recognizing inclusion of people with disability and cognitive accessibility to spaces and places as a fundamental right.
There is compelling evidence that people with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems are at risk of social exclusion. This is due to causes like the fact that intellectually disabled people (IDP) often experience difficulties and psychological barriers in accessing public places and that communities demonstrates low levels of attention to the idea of inclusiveness when referred to IDP (while there has been more focus on accessibility referred to physical disability). This is especially true in the current context generated by the global COVID pandemic, which increased social exclusion for IDP. At the same time there is an increasing need for their educators, therapists and social workers to integrate ICT-based supports in their daily work and to increase their competences in this field. Starting form this, MIND INCLUSION 2.0 leveraged from an idea of a local Italian project named “Dovevado.eu” started in 2015, and created new ways to foster social inclusion through the use of ICT. The main objective of MIND INCLUSION 2.0 was to foster competencies of educators of IDP across Europe to promote the participative co-creation and use of an innovative Smartphone APP supported by the definition of a solid facilitation methodology which can contribute to the sustainable and inclusive involvement of disabled people in the society (available here: https://www.mindinclusion.eu/). Based on EU’s Europe 2020 goal to create smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, the Article 26 of EU Charter, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Erasmus plus KA2 objectives in the field of adult education the project aimed at: - Enhancing cooperation and sharing experience among organizations working with IDP in EU; - Improving digital competences of IDP and their educators fostering the use of the web platform and an independent and inclusive life style; - Developing and sharing successful methodologies and practices (including co-design approach with IDP) to define and build inclusive communities across Europe. The project involved 22 educators and 61 people with disabilities across 4 countries (Italy, Spain, Lithuania and France), touching approximately 300 stakeholder. The main activities included: - The realization of two intensive trainings for social workers: one in Spain about co-design of accessible web-tools and, and another online about the promotion of community inclusiveness through the use of the Mind Inclusion Methodology. - The co-design and development, at European level, of an Android based APP fully accessible by people with intellectual disabilities, which allows gathering information about public places that are keen and sensible to IDP and their caregivers. Such information is gathered with a user-generated content approach, where the target group and their caregivers can directly feed the APP contents with personal experience and reviews. - The development of a facilitation methodology (composed by a Theoretical and an Operational Manual/guidelines, plus related tools) to support the usage of the APP for IDP as well as their inclusion process at community level, and the promotion of inclusive communities. - The promotion of activities, results and outcomes at international level through dissemination activities. The innovation relied on the use of a participatory approach and the adoption of agile methodologies for a truly user-centred co-design process that involved all the potential stakeholders in the design, development and testing/pilot stages of the APP and the methodology. This was possible thanks to the construction of a network of active stakeholders (or local action groups) that supported the participatory design through a set of small scale sessions. Moreover, they participated in promoting the APP and the methodology implementation. The project had strong impacts on participants’ educators in terms of increased competences related to ICT skills and the ability to foster social inclusion. At the same time involved IDP had the possibility to increase their ICT skills, as well as their relational competencies. Moreover, the project promoted their empowerment increasing their quality of life. Involved organizations had a great possibility to develop and disseminate new innovative approaches for addressing people with intellectual disability and favour training of their educators, reinforcing at the same time cooperation and management skills. Finally, even if the COVID pandemic limited our pilot activities, we observed an increase in the inclusion levels of IDP in their communities, thanks to the involvement of owners of public places (Bars, restaurants, etc.), educators, and volunteers. While at the national and international level the project is now trying to influence public authorities, increasing their awareness on the issue of disability and promoting the rights of IDP and the adoption of new innovative policies.