Removal of barriers to social inclusion and social participation for children and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities Erasmus Project

Project Title

Removal of barriers to social inclusion and social participation for children and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities

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 higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

There is a growing number of children and young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) with complex mental health conditions and challenging behaviours and as an outcome experiencing difficulties in social inclusion and participation in society despite legislation and policy aiming to ensure that people with disabilities have equality of opportunity to participate in society. The children and young people with IDD will require education, social and health care support and due to the complexity of their mental health conditions and challenging behaviours in interaction with other contextual factors
addressing their inclusion in education, social and health care services would require inter-professional collaboration. Professionals such as special education teachers, nurses and social workers would work with the children and young people with IDD. Current university education programmes for these professionals are provided to each individual discipline with no shared inter-professional learning. With the increasing number of children and young adults with IDD with complex mental health and challenging behaviours there is a need to create new shared learning opportunities that brings together students from the different professions of special education, nursing and social work.

This collaborative project aims to address this gap by bringing together universities from Sweden, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Romania, England and Poland. The project is concerned with addressing the challenges of educating professionals from different disciplines that will work towards responding to the mental health conditions and challenging behaviours that may impede the social inclusion and social participation in society for children and young people with IDD. The project will bring together academics and students from different professions to work together to co-produce a new and innovative inter-professional education curriculum and course content on the education of professionals who will provide education, care and support to children and young adults with IDD. The project has several objectives and interrelated activities; (i) the development of an inter-professional curriculum resource that upon completion of the project will be integrated within university education that will be responsive to the mental health conditions and challenging behaviours enabling the social inclusion and social participation of children and young people with IDD; (ii) The development and dissemination of understanding and knowledge on children with IDD and issues surrounding their social inclusion and participation through the authoring of three scientific publications, one each year over the three years; (iii) by participating in the project, academics and students will improve their knowledge and understanding of IDD and issues of social inclusion and social participation from an international and inter-professional perspective. Students will complete an assessment with 7.5 ECTS credits and will contribution to the development of the inter-professional curriculum resource; (iv) the project will develop the competence of academics from the partner universities who will facilitate the implementation of the project intellectual outputs and the planning, delivery and evaluation of the intensive programme elements.

The project will involve academics, students, practitioners and parents of children and young people with IDD. During the implementation of the three-years of the project, 210 students from the participating universities will be involved in the Intensive Programme; 70 different students each year. Four academics, totalling 28, from the 7 participating universities will be involved in the delivery of the project. It is anticipated that local practitioners and parents of children and young adults with IDD will be involved in the delivery of the Intensive Programme element of the project. The project activities includes, shared learning regarding the research and education evidence and education and disability policy internationally, across the EU, the research and education evidence about mental health conditions and challenging behaviours and removing the barriers and solutions to achieving social inclusion and participation and how different professions can work together to achieve this policy goal. The main sustainable, long-term outcomes of the project is the development of an inter-professional curriculum resource on the needs of children and young adults with IDD and complex mental health and challenging behaviours for integration within university education and the development of the knowledge and confidence of academics and students to participate in shared inter-professional education that ultimately impacts on practice.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 398367 Eur

Project Coordinator

STOCKHOLMS UNIVERSITET & Country: SE

Project Partners

• OSLOMET – STORBYUNIVERSITETET
• AKADEMIA PEDAGOGIKI SPECJALNEJ IM.MARII GRZEGORZEWSKIEJ
• EDINBURGH NAPIER UNIVERSITY
• THE UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE HIGHER EDUCATION CORPORATION
• UNIVERSITATEA DIN ORADEA
• THE QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY OF BELFAST