Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects 1 in 89 individuals in Europe (ASDEU Study, 2018) and 1 in 54 in the US (CDC, 2020). Teachers in public schools report receiving inadequate training and rate their efficacy in working with young people with autism as low. As EU Council recommends “investing in basic skills has become more relevant than ever”, the project intellectual outputs are designed to help teachers facilitate the acquisition of key competencies by their students. In supporting the development of key competences of youth with disabilities, a special attention is given in the current project – Health Education for Young People with Disabilities (HEDY), to raising the level of personal, social and learning competences to improve health-conscious, future-oriented life management. They imply integration of the components of a healthy mind, body and lifestyle. By the proposed activities, raising teachers capacity, the project reduces disparities in acquiring key competencies & tackles discrimination, minimising the gap between youth with ASD & typical youth. A complex training program of 4 e-learning modules (interactive, with easy to access & use instruments for teaching) will be developed and available for free in 5 european languages: English, French, Romanian, Icelandic & Greek. Young people with disabilities taught by trained teachers will thus develop key personal self care competencies. Moreover, youth with disabilities will contribute to the co-creation of the e-learning modules, thus resulting in a Guideline for youth participation output. Putting together the 5 partners' expertise and the support of 8 associated partner schools, an attractive, innovative & unique project will be developed, impacting over 1000 teachers and through them, a large community of highly vulnerable youth. The project will produce significant results over the next two years and beyond, through training and available, free, online based, high quality learning content. The project has the following objectives: O1. Strengthen the knowledge & skills of addressing key competencies related to personal development and health for 800 teachers from the 4 partners’ countries through a complex 4 modules e-learning program O2 Improve access of teachers to high-quality ICT based learning through dissemination of innovative outputs towards 200 local & national school stakeholders O3. Support self representation of young people with ASD through involvement of 18 youth in content piloting and development of a Guideline on youth participation The project will have the following direct results: - 800 teachers from mainstream and special schools from Romania, Greece, Iceland and Belgium will demonstrate (through pre and post-training questionnaires) increased knowledge and skills in tackling personal development and health education with young people with disabilities. - 200 stakeholders from NGOs, schools, local educational authorities will have a better understanding of the existing training program and will be able to further disseminate it. - At least 18 young people from 8 associated partners and CSEI will have been involved in the project participating in e-learning modules piloting and guideline for participation development. - At least 90 teachers from special schools and 90 ASD family members (parents) will be impacted by the Guideline for youth participation. The project employs an evidence-based approach and will generate a set of four ICT based e-learning modules for teachers from mainstream and special schools, providing a highly structured content. The main outputs of the project will consist of key relevant contents associated with ready-made visual aids which will ensure immediate impact for the final target group – children & youth with disabilities (especially ASD). The 4 e-learning modules have the following themes: Explaining development and puberty to children and young people with disabilities. Teaching personal hygiene & self care for children and young people with disabilities. Sexual and reproductive health education for teenagers with disabilities Legal and policy aspects related to health education of children with disabilities. The project is innovative in content and design of the intellectual outputs. An element of innovation brought in by the consortium is the involvement of the young people with disability in the process of development of learning contents. The project demonstrates unicity in approaching health education of youth with disabilities, a problematic and complex issue. The involvement of young people will ensure production of simple & self-explanatory visuals that will aid teachers and ultimately youth in tackling health education. The cross-sectoral, multi-layered intervention that the current consortium provides proves a high quality of the outputs and results, followed by a strong dissemination and sustainability phase.
Hedy project proposed a set of three objectives: to strengthen the knowledge & skills of addressing key competencies related to personal development & health for 800 teachers from the 4 partners’ countries through a complex set of four modules e-learning program to improve access of teachers to high-quality ICT based learning through dissemination of innovative outputs towards 200 local & national school stakeholders to support self representation of young people with ASD through involvement of 18 youth in content piloting & development of a Guideline on youth participation Putting together partners' expertise, HEDY developed an attractive, innovative & unique training program for teachers impacting over 1000 professionals and through them, a large community of highly vulnerable youth. The impact of the project consists in increased competencies for teachers communities in the 4 partner countries in addressing health education topics with young people with disabilities. A complex training program of 4 e-learning modules with easy to access and use instruments for teaching have been developed within the project and are available for free in 5 European languages: English, French, Romanian, Icelandic and Greek.
The decision to apply for this project emerged in 2018-2019 as RAA identified within its projects and conducted studies a major training need within the teachers community working with children with disabilities in the area of health education, with a focus on sexual education. Health education is a sensible topic that mainstream school teachers are not equipped to tackle either, but for teachers working with children with disabilities it is even more challenging. CSEI Ploiesti 2 confirmed the need identified by RAA and wanted to be part of the project development. A similar need was documented with studies by the Greek partner (IASIS) as well. Therefore, we started the process of identifying a partner with solid expertise in the area of health education training and identified Greiningar Iceland, which has been implementing training programs for special education for more than 10 years. In order to validate materials with people directly affected by disability and develop an advocacy and policy change component we have decided to partner with Autism Europe, an umbrella organization for a number of 90 national and regional associations advocating for the rights of people with autism from more than 30 European countries.