Professionalisierung pädagogischer Konzepte mittels Entwicklung eines Qualifizierungsangebots im europäischen Taubblindenwesen Erasmus Project

Project Title

Professionalisierung pädagogischer Konzepte mittels Entwicklung eines Qualifizierungsangebots im europäischen Taubblindenwesen

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Due to the lack of qualification offers in the field of deafblindness throughout Europe, it is strongly indicated to develop a broad and innovative staff training program. This is even more needed as you keep in mind the necessity for an outstanding expertise in the work with people with deafblindness.
The effect of the absence of expertise due to the high degree of dependence of people with deafblindness owing to their combined loss of senses is fatal.

This program is the only way to ensure the participation of people with deafblindness in society throughout their entire life span.
For this purpose, due to the high specifity of deafblindness in connection with relatively few highly qualified professionals, we have concentrated on a competence pooling of the eight leading centers for deafblindness in the German language area – two from the Netherlands, one from Austria, one from Switzerland and four from Germany.
Only in this way could a sustainable implementation of the development of a staff training program and an appropriate standard in the qualification of staff be guaranteed.
The selection of the participating institutions with a total of 15 experts (core team members) is based on the highest possible professional excellence (e.g. international Master’s course “communication and deafblindness”) and experience (up to 40 years of professional experience) in the field. It was possible to involve the best in their field for cooperation and their individual areas are taken into account in terms of content and method.
The aim was to develop a structural-methodological approach comprising six modules (I presence modules; II transfer phases; III learning partnerships; IV online sharing; V individual portfolio; VI learning congress) and on the level of content out of five qualification fields (I video analysis; congenital deafblindness and social interaction; III meaning making and practical training; IV combined sensory impairment and acquired deafblindness; V learning congress) for people, who are working with children, youths and adults with deafblindness, which has been very successful.

Innovative is the way of teaching, as this is developed and differentiated on current findings from research in adult education and neurophysiology.

The method of developing the staff training program was created by developing six high-quality modules in partial responsibility and supporting team partners:
These are four basic modules based on four standard books on communication and congenital deafblindness, which were translated from English into German in the predecessor project PropäK and two special modules focusing on video analysis and combined sensory impairments, respectively in the denomination of the extended group of persons implemented in the four basic modules. The six modules are taken into account in each qualification.

The concrete result is a folder for those carrying out the qualification program, which contains aspects of content and methods attached to the qualification areas. This folder makes an independent implementation and participation of and in the staff training program possible.
Due to the staff training program the expertise in the German-speaking area and with subsequent translation also in other language areas was significantly improved and for the first time an European standard was developed; participants and developers have become more motivated. In addition, the field of deafblindness will become more and more recognized as a field on its own.
In addition to the development of a staff training program, the work of the network was influenced above all by the three multiplier events, the future learning congresses in the course of the staff training program and the goal directed public relations.
Furthermore, the topic of consulting – both in the children and youth as well as in the adult sector – was a further focus of the core team meetings, which corresponds to the spirit of inclusion and to a shared expertise of the partner institutions and of the institutions with which this knowledge has been shared.
A total of seven core team meetings and twelve additional working group meetings took place, whereby the preparatory work in matters of staff training program was carried out by partially responsible persons and team partners and a corrective was then developed in the core team.
The learning effects of the participants of the staff training program, the increasing motivation of the developers as well as an increase in professionalism, but also the existence of a German-language program as well as the possibility of translation into other languages and the existence of a consolidated European network, which will be expanded by additional partners in the future, are thus sustainable.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 169720,33 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stiftung St. Franziskus Heiligenbronn & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Deutsches Taubblindenwerk gemeinnützige GmbH
• Stichting Koninklijke Kentalis
• Oberlinhaus
• RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN
• Österreichisches Hilfswerk für Taubblinde und hochgradig Hör- und Sehbehinderte – ÖHTB
• Blindeninstitutsstiftung