From March 27 to 29, 2023, Magdalena Tsoneva – training and research manager and Virginia Vasileva – psychologist, psychotherapist and trainer, visited CKSG – Center for Hearing and Speech Correction in Portorož, Slovenia during a 3-day work meeting under ASUMIE Project (Additional support and mediated learning in inclusive education). Within this project, Karin Dom is partnering with universities and centers to support inclusive education from Belgium, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. ASUMIE is a 3-year project under the Erasmus+ program, which will finish with the creation of a mass online course for specialists in the field of additional support for inclusive education. The mass online course will bring together a rich set of selected scientific and practical information from all over Europe – attitude studies, scientific publications, shared good practices, etc. The center in Portoroz has the status of a school and works with about 80 children a year. The children are from numerous small settlements in the area. Children who have not been able to fit into the general education system are educated there. Children with hearing and speech difficulties, with rare syndromes, with dyslexia, with learning difficulties and with autism from 3 to 18 years of age are trained. The place is very creatively oriented, they are developing a school of art and applied arts, as well as a school of cinema and theater art. Their students participate in exhibitions, performances, productions and festivals. They have a judo coach who works with children with behavioral and mental difficulties. They receive funding from the Ministry of Education and Health, from the municipality, as well as from various projects, donors and sponsors.
Within the framework of the partnership meeting, a public event was organized in which project coordinator Benno Schrepen from University College Antwerp, Belgium, shared the results of research conducted in all partner countries on attitudes, barriers and necessary support for successful inclusive education. Partners from Norway, as well as representatives of the hosts, participated by sharing their experience. In July, a 4-day summer school will be held in Norway with the participation of a wider audience. We also have a lot of work ahead of us in creating and launching the mass online course, which will also be available in Bulgarian.
The material was prepared within the Erasmus+ international project ASUMIE – Additional support and mediated learning in inclusive education.