ABOUT

  • Cooperation partnerships in youth

  • Duration: 24 months (01/03/2023 – 01/03/2025)

  • Funded by the Erasmus+ programme by the European Union

OBJECTIVES

The partnership has following objectives:

– To create new functional profile of “Disability support moderator” at NGOs
– To train and prepare specific person(s) at NGOs as disability support moderators.
– To equip them with proper training on disability awareness, disability etiquette, communication guidelines including basic communication via assistive technologies and sign language
– To ensure proper inclusion and transition of youth with disabilities from formal/non-formal education possibilies

TARGET GROUPS

The main target groups of the project are the following:
– Youth with disabilities (aged 16-27), who would like to apply and enter formal or non-formal youth education in Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria and Turkey
– Youth NGO staff – among their staff we would like to train disability support moderators
– Educational staff and Management board – they will need to approve and monitor the work of the disability support moderators
– Parents of youth with disabilities – they will have an advocacy and supportive role as peer reviewers in the process of inclusion and transition between different forms of education.

PURPOSE & SOLUTION

Nowadays, Youth non-formal education institutions are very conscious on possible attraction of youth with disabilities in order to be fully integrated from the mainstream and vocational schools to the youth education and to be in line with the application of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD and Article 24 in particular. However, when the youth applied for training, in the most cases, there is nobody, who can assist, advise and negotiate with the staff possible adaptations of the educational process (both for formal and non-formal courses).

Our project is aiming at building inclusive youth support of the future, where the youth with disabilities will be able to enter, but also to succeed in terms of accessibility of the environment, but also behavioural accessibility in terms of possible adaptation of the non-formal learning process or adaptive learning by use of specific assistive technologies, that support the success in the any kind of formal or non-formal educational process. For that purpose we need a person(s), depending on the size of the NGO, who will support the youth with disability from the process of applying to the education, through the entrance examinations and during its studies. Therefore, the main aim of the project is to prepare specific person(s) at NGOs as disability support moderators. These people will be equipped with proper training on disability awareness, disability etiquette, communication guidelines including basic communication via assistive technologies and sign language.

This will ensure that we are successfully building inclusive youth pathways for formal and non-formal education systems with propagators youth oriented and targeted organisations from Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria and Turkey. In order to reach certain positive outcome, we need initial preparatory work with parents and with the youth with disabilities themselves, therefore 3 NGO organisations (from Spain, Bulgaria and Turkey) are also on board to support smoothly this process. In order the disability support moderator to work smoothly we plan to establish a functional profile, which will present the organisation of his/her work duties and responsibilities as well as hierarchical communication with the other staff and non-staff member at the formal and non-formal educational providers. In addition, we will create communication module on disability awareness, disability etiquette, communication guidelines in order to be sure that the moderator can properly approach and address the communication with the youth with disabilities.

As outcome from the process, at least 40 people will be trained as youth NGO’s disability support moderators. The training of youth workers will be in line with the recognition and validation of learning outcomes based on units of learning outcomes in the handbook.