The first mobility of the project TEDDIP’Europe took place from the 30th June to 4th July, 2016 hosted by medical-educational institute IME “Al Casal” in Perpignan, France. The one week mobility brought together 12 educators working with young people with intellectual disabilities supported by CESIE (Italy), Les Aigues (Spain) and Eppas (Czech Republic).
The TEDDIP’Europe project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme – Key Action 2, Strategic partnerships for Youth, aims to integrate minors with an intellectual disability (in French under the syndromes called TED and DIP) into the community based support structures. During the two years of the project the total of 5 short-term mobilities will be implemented targeted at both educators and TEDDIP youth.
The Italian team of 4 educators from 2 local centers “Canto di Los” and “Volta La Carta” over the week of the first mobility had a change to get a better understanding of the current legislation in the partner countries regarding the public and private assistance for young TEDDIP and got familiar with new intervention strategies that can be used to advance the integration of youth with intellectual disabilities. Educators participated in activities and workshops experimenting approaches targeted at young TEDDIP, such as baking, horse riding, judo, gardening workshops, psychometric activities, etc. The activities during the mobility were filmed and at the end of the project will be presented in the educational video that will be one of the final deliverables of the project.
Educators then spent the last day sharing the experiences of different methodologies used in their institutions/ centers that will contribute to the development of a good practice guide of methods to be used by the educators and youth workers dealing with TEDDIP target. The exchange of good practices will also support the development of the “White book” to further the implementation of the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of Council of Europe CM/Rec(2010)2 to member states on de-institutionalisation and community living of children with disabilities across the 4 partner countries.
Italian team of educators expect that this experience will give them more energy and motivation to continue their work on mental health issues since it is a very complex and challenging field of work that needs to be acknowledged and supported.
The next mobility activity will be held in Palermo in July and hosted by CESIE, “Canto di Los” and “Volta la Carta”. For further information about the project, please contact Ruta Grigaliunaite: ruta.grigaliunaite@cesie.org.
