VET programme for medical practitioners supporting parents of babies with disabilities and complex needs Erasmus Project

Project Title

VET programme for medical practitioners supporting parents of babies with disabilities and complex needs

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Health and wellbeing; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

According to the World Health organisation latest report, of the 5.2 million births in the EU each year, approximately 104,000 (2%) will be born with congenital anomalies. It means that more than 104, 000 families are affected and their future will depend on timely and adequate support provided by the first professional to whom they rely on. Thus, gynaecologists, neonatologists, midwifes nurses, carers face a new challenge which they need to overcome – to communicate , interact and support the parents of new-borns with congenital disabilities and subsequently complex needs.
The latest evidence in the field of neonatology and early child development destine key role of early stimulation and intervention of premature babies and babies with congenital disabilities in order to secure their normal development which should start as early as possible. In this situation the parents alongside with the medical professionals working in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Neonatology also play a very important role for the babies’ development and for stabilizing of the family at the critical stage of appearance of new-born with disability.
The medical staff role is the most important at this stage not only because of the medical care and the specific information they provide, but especially because of their mediation role between parents and the new-born and facilitation of the initial relationship between them. Changes that occur to parents are very significant and they greatly need support to adopt these changes and cope with difficulties.

Medvet project has been started on the 01/09/2017 and has been successfully finalised on 31/12/2020. 7 partners were committed to create a set of training modules supported by online self-assessment tools following 3 learning pathways for medical doctors, nurses and midwives, caregivers and doulas respectively. One of the key achievements in the project is the unique living library, which contains 16 Live Books from parents of children with disabilities or premature babies, gynaecologists, neonatologists and midwives. All outcomes have been delivered in all partner languages.
Our project has put the emphasis on the social, emotional and professional well-being with a training programme that addresses holistic aspects of the medical professionals’ daily work. This training has helped them to develop new strategies that they can apply to ensure the support of parents. Medical professionals (around 160 trained till the end of the project), were trained to recognize the signs and to work on the abandonment prevention at level of the maternity ward and were made aware of the essence of the term “child at risk”.

The gynaecologists, neonatologists, midwifes nurses, carers are now able to support parents to build up their new everyday life strategy in order to ensure smooth physical, emotional and cognitive development of the new-born family member with disability.
Hence, the medical professionals should execute new tasks – to communicate, interact and support the parents of new-borns with disabilities who are extremely vulnerable at this crisis moment. Therefor at the heart of MedVET project lies a specialized training program, which provides to the medical professionals successful models for sparing communication and efficient interaction with families.

Following outcomes were realised:
IO 1: Holistic framework of socio-medical models for parents support
IO 2: ECVET based MedVET support training curriculum
IO 3: MedVET support Training programme and Assessment mechanism
IO 4: Peer support portal
IO 5: Mobile learning app (Android and iOS)
IO 6: interactive good practice guide

These outputs were developed by a team of 7 partners from 4 countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Belgium and Turkey) consisting of 2 universities, 3 NGOs , 1 SME, and 1 private hospital.

The quality and the applicability of the created training materials and tools were tested with small scale piloting implemented in each partner country. The final MedVET outcomes were demonstrated among key stakeholders and representatives of project’s target groups within one final international multiplier event held virtually and two physical national multiplier events held in Bulgaria and Belgium. The total number of the participants exceeded 250.

All project outcomes can be found through its website www.medvet-project.eu/, which is available in all partner languages as well as in EN.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 268604,22 Eur

Project Coordinator

MARMARA UNIVERSITY & Country: TR

Project Partners

• GAZI UNIVERSITESI
• SDRUZENIJE NA NA RABOTESHTITE S HORA S UVREZHDANIYA
• PHOENIXKM BVBA
• SPECIALISED HOSPITAL FOR ACTIVE TREATMENT OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY “SELENA”
• Spastic Children’s Foundation of Turkey (Turkiye Spastik Cocuklar Vakfi)
• ASOCIATIA UNU SI UNU