E-learning platform for intellectual disability awareness Erasmus Project

Project Title

E-learning platform for intellectual disability awareness

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The implementation of differentiated educational programs for Persons With Intellectual Disabilities (PWID), as well as the quality of training for the professionals who support them, have traditionally been the main focus of policies aiming to enhance the social inclusion of PWID. Action-taking focusing on the parents’ knowledge base has not received equal attention, despite the fact that it is widely recognized, that parents play a significant role in the life of their children. The ELPIDA project aimed to fill this gap by providing tailor made training to parents of PWID in order to enhance the support they provide to their children and enable them to positively influence the quality of their life. The project’s overall goal was the empowerment of PWID to a better quality of life. The project concept is founded on the assumption that parental support is a key vehicle for improving the lives of persons with Intellectual Disability (ID) and on such a base set its goal to be the provision of parental support. In ELPIDA the provision of parental support takes the form of professionally developed learning resources accessible through a Learning Platform. The specific themes/topics addressed by the resources were defined through interaction between the project partners and persons with Intellectual Disability in the forms of focus group discussions and data gathering. The process concluded to a set of six thematic units which constitute the projects set of stand alone modules and address the themes of Human Rights, Communication, Stress Management, Transition to Adulthood, Sexual Health, Ageing. The drafting of the contents was driven by a learning objective perspective. The resources put in place feature multimedia elements and are supplemented with reflective questions for parents which in turn are addressed with rigorous evaluated contents. The six modules developed in Moodle can be followed/attended on a participants’ preference order, each complemented with pre-post assessment tools. The set of modules and complemented features are accessible through the ELPIDA Learning Platform (http://www.elpida-project.eu/index.php/en/) which is available in seven linguistic versions (Danish, English, French, German, Greek, Norwegian, Portuguese). The Platform has been used by approximately 400 parents and the up to date results suggest acceptance by the target group it is intended for. On interest is that the Platform, to a rather high degree, is accessed through mobile phones. The concepts embedded in the project concern and the outcomes of 24 months activity context implemented, besides the wide dissemination undertaken by the partnership (conferences, events, distribution of dissemination material, communication with parents and NGOs) having reached approximately 10.000 stakeholders, have also gained the acceptance of professionals in the area of care and policy through an Event hosted in the European Parliament. The latter gave rise to interest by large Associations whose sphere of activity addresses issues on ID. The project has also been honored to be selected as an example of good practice by the European Commission that published the project’s results at the April’s editorial of School Education Gateway, as well as to be shortlisted for an award by the Zero Project initiative. It is of interest that the learning resources have been assessed as being appropriate for university courses in social work and nursery.The partnership attended to the above in a highly collaborative manner and attests its interest to further pursue its efforts towards enhancing the learnability potential (with state-of- the- art resources) to parents and caretakers of persons with intellectual disability.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 186609 Eur

Project Coordinator

IDRYMA TECHNOLOGIAS KAI EREVNAS & Country: EL

Project Partners

• OSLOMET – STORBYUNIVERSITETET
• EUROPEAN PARENTS ASSOCIATION
• IB Südwest gGmbh für Bildung und soziale Dienste – Region Hessen Mitte
• Center for Specialpaedagogiske Boernetilbud
• SOCIAL ENTERPRISE PUZZLE