With this project we wanted to raise awareness for needs of additional education for working with students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Visiting schools true job shadowing is a great way of learning the implementation of specific methods of work and support for students with ASD. The main objectivities of this project were to increase the knowledge and competence of teaching assistants and to gain new skills of working in a multicultural environment. Also, with this mobility we wanted to increase their job satisfaction and work motivation and to efficiently determine the plan of their professional development. We expected this project to have a positive impact on teaching assistants competences to provide professional support to staff in special or mainstream schools. At the level of our organization, the project would contribute to development of our strategy of internationalization and facilitate successful future international cooperation. Finally, the most important for us was that students with ASD and their parents as end users would have a long term benefit. Once teaching assistants acquire the knowledge, they will have better quality in education for children with autism.
Project ˝Autism Spectrum Disorders - Empowering Teaching Assistants" was initiated by Sina Svetulka" from Skopje with idea to create opportunities for professional development of special educators and rehabilitators as teaching assistants in the schools. Because our country is in the process of inclusive education, we wanted to use our past cooperation with Target Autism from UK for job shadowing in schools in UK. Teaching students with autism needs additional education for teachers, assistants and special educators. We applied this project, because with job shadowing we will have chance to experience teaching assistance for students with autism in schools in UK. Our experience of successful cooperation on different projects with a variety of institutions and organizations across Europe motivate our members to write this project and apply within this Erasmus + Call. Also, contacts and experiences with organizations from UK, their competences in working with children with ASD was added motivation for our professionals.