Nowadays, the focus is on the employment of people with disabilities, but successful solutions to integration can not be solved without solving emerging communication problems. One of the most important and essential human needs is communication. However, communication issues make problems is two levels: in the disabled person level and his relatives. The difficulty of language perception and communication makes a difficult to understand even the elementary needs of disabled people for other. Both person with mental disability and people from his environment suffer from stress because of the inability to express the need for help. Only a person who have ability to communicate can integrate into society and participate in the various activities with everyone, while also improving his socialization, can show his emotions without complexes and do not feel alone. Unfortunately, people with disabilities can not always express their feelings easily. This project will seek to find communication opportunities and solve emerging problems, apply the best communication methods that will allow expressing opinions and feelings of people with mental and intellectual disability. In this project we will trying to involve all people with different disability and will be trying to make the communication process easier for people with disabilities. So one of the goal is to adapt methodological instrument to each of the participants' cognitive and social abilities. We believe that by using the newest tools based on the newest technology, we will motivate, get interested and encourage our clients to improve their communication skills. We also assume that practically tested more accessible tool, our customers motivate to improve their communication skills outside the organization, i. e. they will use the tool to co-operate with their family, on finding new friends, and etc. In this project will be organized 3 meetings in each of the Europe countries (Lithuania, Iceland and Hungary). Every meeting lasting 8 days including arrival and departure day. In every organized meeting can take part 2-3 workers from organization and 1 disabled person with intellectual and mental disabilities who are able to partially make decisions and will have the opportunity to participate in the development of communication skills. During each meeting, each country will present its methods for improving communication skills. Jonava people with disabilities activity center will use the methodological measure "Bendraukime paveikslėliais" (eng. Communication through picture). Haefingarstodin Baejarhrauni center will use the methodological measure; Intensive interaction and Bliss approach. Strazsa Tanya will use drama as a way for communication. When project partners will share their methods and good practices, members of the organization will learn how to work with the communication skills improvement of mental disabled people. At meetings, both attending staff and people with disabilities will take part in organized classes where they will learn the new ways of communication skills improvement. After having learned the newest ways of communication skills improvement, disabled people, along with accompanying persons, will return to their home country to teach other people with disabilities how to develop skills of communication. Employees will transfer their knowledge to their colleagues and apply them to their organization. At the end of the project, will be created three movies (by all partners of projects) about the methods used by all three countries in developing communications skills and their application in every organization. fter project will be continuing the development of communication skills for people with mental and intellectual disabilities in all organizations, will be using skills and methods received in the project. During the project will be develop not just the skill of communication but also the skills of emotions management will be improved, the feeling of social isolation will be decreased, social integration will be improved. All these result will be maintained and further developed, improved. All methods and material base which will be developed and customized for people with mental/intellectual disability in this project, will be used continually after project. Taking into account the fact that during the project will be made quite a lot of material recourses (for example movies about used methods, all skills and competences acquired by employees, progress in communication of our clients and etc.) we are sure that after project all partners will have enough resources to continue the activities started in the project.
Nowadays, the focus is on the employment of people with disabilities, but successful integration solutions cannot be solved without solving the communication problems. One of the most important and essential human needs is communication. However, communication difficulties cause several levels of problems: the levels of the disabled person, his relatives and those around him. Other people have difficulty understanding even their basic needs due to the language comprehension and communication difficulties of a person with a disability. Both people with a mental disability and those around them suffer from stress because they are unable to express the need for help. Only a person who is able to communicate can integrate into society and participate in various activities with everyone, while improving their socialization, can show their emotions without complexes and not feel alone. Unfortunately, people with disabilities are not always able to easily express their feelings. The aim of this project was to find communication opportunities and solve emerging problems, to apply the best methods of communication that would allow to express the opinions and feelings of people with mental and intellectual disabilities. In this project, we tried to involve all people with different disabilities and facilitate the communication process of the disabled. One of project goal is to adapt the methodological tool according to the cognitive and social abilities of each participant. We believe that by using the latest tools based on the latest technology, we will motivate, engage and encourage our clients to improve their communication skills even after the project is over. The knowledge gained during the project about communication methods motivates our clients to use new learned communication skills outside the organization, for example, they will use the learned tools to collaborate with their family, make new friends and more. During the project implementation, 2 local meetings were organized in Lithuania and Iceland. The meetings organized in Lithuania and Iceland were attended by 2-3 employees of the organization and 1 person with a mental or complex disability from each country. The third remote meeting was attended by 3-12 employees and 6-15 disabled people with mental or complex disabilities from each country. At each meeting, each country presented methods for improving communication skills in their organizations. Jonava distric people with disabilities activity center presented the methodological tool “Communication via picture”. The Haefingarstodin Baejarhrauni center introduced the AAC method. Strázsa Tanya Közhasznú Szocial Szövetkezet presented the drama as a communication method. Each project partner introduced the communication methods used in their institution and shared their good practices, and the members of the organization learned how to improve the communication skills of people with mental disabilities. We want to note that during the remote meeting, Iceland and Lithuania purchased equipment for the disabled, which helped them to fully participate in the organized activities. This equipment will be used after the end of the project too. The staff and people with disabilities who took part in the meetings took part in various workshops and learn how to apply new communication skills. After learning about the latest ways to improve their communication skills, the project participants not only passed on the knowledge they had acquired about their new communication methods to their people in their home country, but also shared their knowledge with other staff. We would like to mention the fact that thanks to the project, each organization participating in the project will be able to apply at least 2 additional methods that have been learned in its work with people with disabilities instead of one applied method. We would also like to point out that the three available methods can be applied depending on the severity of the disability of the disabled person, which in fact greatly facilitates the work with the disabled. We note that the project improved not only communication but also emotion management skills, which helped to reduce the feeling of social isolation and improved social integration. The material base created during the project (communication methods and purchased equipment) not only improved the quality of institutions' work with disabled people, but also allowed the disabled themselves to feel full members of society, to express their thoughts and wishes. Taking into account the experience gained during the project and the material base created, this activity will be continued.