ENABLIN – Enabling and Including Young People with Complex and Intense Support Needs

The ENABLIN + project is addressed at the needs of children and youth with complex and intense support needs (CISN), their caregivers and supporters.

The project is a partnership project between 8 organisations, as part of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and takes place in the following countries: Bulgaria, Belgium, Romania, Italy, Portugal, France, the Netherlands.The lead partner is the University of Antwerp, Belgium.

Project goals

It wants to develop a system of interdisciplinary in-service training, where professionals and parents of various professional backgrounds learn together, with the aim of improving inclusion, promoting de-institutionalisation and enhancing quality of life of the children with CISN, at various age levels.

The ENABLIN+ project responds to  urgent needs for training, signalled in richer as well poorer EU member states, to meet the increasing demands for supporting children with CISN and comply to the 2006 Convention of the United Nations on the rights of persons with disabilities, forcing countries to take measures of de-institutionalisation and to organize the possibility of including children with a disability in normal schools & life.

Present vocational training insufficiently prepares professionals to deal with these issues. There is a need of transdisciplinary collaboration of all concerned: parents, teachers, daily-life supporting staff, medical & rehabilitation staff and vocational training staff.

Activities

As a project partner Karin Dom Foundation participates in the realization of all project activities in line with its expertise. The project wants to do:

1. a needs study
2. search and describe examples of good practice
3. develop a set of training modules in English, Dutch, French, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian languages, oriented at support needs assessment, staff attitudes, beliefs and conceptual systems, enhancing children’s communication capacities, daily life activities, behaviour regulation, activation and participation in learning and inclusive schooling
4. Modules can be on-line as well as in real meetings.
5. An international summer school will be organised.
6. Results will be disseminated in newsletters, professional articles, a white-book and DVD.