HEDY – Health education for young people with disabilities
About the project
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects 1 in 89 people in Europe (ASDEU Study, 2018) and 1 in 54 in the USA (CDC, 2020).
Teachers in mainstream schools claim that they have not received adequate training and rate their effectiveness in working with young people with autism at a low level. Since, according to the Council of the European Union, the acquisition and reinforcement of basic skills have become more relevant than ever, the intellectual outcomes of the project are designed to help teachers facilitate the acquisition and reinforcement of key competencies among their students.
The project supports the development of key competencies for young people with disabilities, with the aim of increasing the level of personal, social, and learning skills for a healthy, future-oriented life.
Bringing together the expertise of 5 key partners– the Romanian Angel Appeal Foundation (RAA), Autism-Europe (AE), State Diagnostic and Counselling Centre, IASIS, and the No. 2 Inclusive Education School Centre (CSEI). Ploieşti, and benefiting from the support of 8 associated partner schools, HEDY proposes an attractive, innovative, and unique approach, which will target over 1000 teachers and, through them, a large community of highly vulnerable young people.
A comprehensive training program comprising 4 e-learning modules (interactive, with tools that are easy to access and use for teaching) will be developed and made available for free in 5 European languages: English, French, Romanian, Icelandic, and Greek.
Objectives
The project proposes the following objectives:
- Strengthening the knowledge and skills for addressing key competencies related to personal development and health for 800 teachers from the 4 partner countries through a comprehensive training program consisting of 4 e-learning modules
- Improving teachers’ access to high-quality ICT-based learning by disseminating innovative results to 200 professionals from local and national educational institutions
- Supporting the representation of young people with ASD by involving 18 young people in piloting the content and developing a guide on their participation
Outcomes
Expected outcomes of the project:
- 800 teachers from mainstream and special schools in Romania, Greece, Iceland, and Belgium will demonstrate (through pre- and post-training questionnaires) increased knowledge and skills in addressing personal development and health education when working with young people with disabilities
- 200 representatives from NGOs, schools, and local educational authorities will be informed about the proposed training program and will be able to further disseminate it
- At least 18 young people from the 8 associated partner schools and CSEI will be involved in the project by participating in the pilot testing of the learning modules and will contribute to the development of the guide on youth participation
- At least 90 teachers from special schools and 90 family members of young people with autism will access the Guide on youth participation
Intellectual outputs
By the end of the project, 5 intellectual outputs will be completed (in English and the 4 project languages – French, Spanish, Norwegian, Romanian) and disseminated in the format of e-learning courses:
- Module 1 – Development and puberty among children and young people with disabilities
- Module 2 – Teaching hygiene and personal care rules for children and young people with disabilities
- Module 3 – Sexual and reproductive health for adolescents with disabilities
- Module 4 – Legal and policy aspects related to health education for children with disabilities
- Guide for youth participation
All intellectual outputs are available on the e-learning platform.
Resources
To access the resources developed within the project, please visit our page HERE.
