Growing Respect and Opportunities in the Workplace and in the Home for Visually Impaired People Erasmus Project

Project Title

Growing Respect and Opportunities in the Workplace and in the Home for Visually Impaired People

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Transport and mobility; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

Context/Background: A long alliance between CSRP and RNC continues to develop and grow, assisting staff and blind and visually impaired students alongside some sighted students with other challenges to extend experience of language, culture, and attitudes to difference. In exchanges they have been ready to explore themselves, and the opportunities offered to share experience from a variety of work placements relevant to emerging skills and interests, abilities and specifically to their curriculum. Staff in both countries have seen opportunities extend from the first simple in-house exposure to food and language, through participation in classes and now to work based learning, work shadowing and work placements in and out of the colleges, in areas relevant to studies or an individual’s eventual proposed area of work.

Objectives: Exchange of Practices is the main objective, achieved by impact on individuals and their capabilities, also on attitudes to varied procedures in either college, particularly on how students can gain from practical involvement in operating the project as much as participating in travel.
Our three year project aimed to allow activities related to language, business, IT, and personal independence skills, by shared work often related
to curriculum models building and growing from previous engagement. Staff-only visits early in the project explored skills in areas where partners
considered the other is better resourced or more imaginative. This allowed those not otherwise directly involved to bring initiative and enquiry,
expanding age groups and subjects explored. For students on exchange visits, and when hosting, there is no substitute for being challenged in
new situations, being immersed in difference, and realising that the levels of preparation carried out have been effective.

Participating Organisations: RNC and CSRP are specialist residential colleges for blind or visually impaired students. The target group is 16-20 or so. We have long worked together developing depth and reach and with succession planning in mind as sector change is constant. Additional differences exist in overall age groups, provision of ancillary services for the extended core curriculum needed in Independent Living Skills, Orientation and Mobility, Sport and attitudes to one’s disability alongside preparation for integration into higher study, the workplace and wider society with skill, confidence and ability to put others at their ease. Exploring these areas together involved contacts with other service organisations highlighting differences in each country’s approach to integration. Travelling members of staff are encouraged to further their personal development in the project context. Students who may have travelled more than once, for progression, often ask for to extend their experience. Visiting a foreign university to speak to subject and disability staff is valued, a student asked to play the cathedral organ to add to his experience.

Main Activities; We explore several themes:
– Staff visits for personal exchange of practice and exploration of possibilities.
– Student mobilities to enhance language, explore varied modes of transport, manage change and difference, extend specific curriculum
areas alongside French partners and participate in work based learning, work shadowing or work placement whilst also having fun with new
friends and experiencing family meals at someone’s home.
– Involving other students and staff in hosting visits, especially the business administration groups and ancillary services including students
who, through integrating the project into curriculum develop various mechanisms for managing our “travel box” of resources for all travel abroad,
also brailing menus and timetables, issuing lanyards and keys, logging use of the Erasmus tablets, charging them on return, managing bookings
and liaising with counterparts to select restaurants, book outings, get metro tickets, sourcing devices for interacting with pedestrian crossings.

Results and impact attained; GROWTH-4-VIP has seen varied successes for individuals (students and staff!) discovering themselves through challenge, extending abilities thought practice, and influencing curriculum development especially around attitudes and preparation for moving on into a wider community of work or higher education and integrating into wider society, The role of IT was largely positive as it permits so much autonomy for those with sight loss, though some facets are not routinely accessible and some systems did not work well across countries, or with limited wifi access.

Longer-term benefits: cumulative learning from long association, agreement to share a new Erasmus+ KA 229 project on Mental Health + Wellbeing. “VisIting boosted my confidence, generally and in my French studies. It has helped me feel ready for the future. I intend using what I’ve learned after RNC”

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 79021,13 Eur

Project Coordinator

Royal National College for the Blind & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Etablissement Régional d’Enseignement Adapté aux Déficients Visuels Cité scolaire René Pellet