IC Life Training 1 - Campus Accessibility: March 18-22, 2018
Sunday 18/03
14:00-17:30 Presentations of engineering students and PID about tools for shopping in a supermarket
(Boswachtershuis, Westerlo)
Monday 19/03
10:00 Reception
10:15 Making acquaintance serving pie and coffee
10:45 Game: training on direction signs on the campus
12:00 Afterthought and points of improvement on direction signs for PID on a University Campus
13:00 Lunch
14:30 Discussing about the design for a small sales cart accessible for PID, to be driven around on campus.
15:45 Coffee break
16:00 – 17:00 The rules for Meetings and Accessibility Cards; guidelines for organizers; guidelines for speakers (Milan Sverepa; Inclusion Europe)
20:30 – 22:00 For those who want it: A Belgian beer at ‘De oude brouwerij’
Tuesday 20/3
08:30 Assistive Communication Technology: use and training
12:00 Lunch
13:30 Try-out and developing welcome flyer (Rauni + Sari)
15:00 Try-out Blue Assist (Aleidis)
16:30 – 17:30 Meeting: afterthoughts with coffee
Wednesday 21/3
09:30 Presentation of Emmaüs, a centre of support for people with special needs (PID) on a University Campus in Lviv / Ukraine
(Christina Anglès d’Auriac)
11:00 Students’ Occupational Therapy about their project co-housing together with PID
13:00 Lunch (The partners + PID + coaches will spend the afternoon together)
14:00 An intellectual disability, do you know what it means? (Dave Bast, life expert; Lizzie Rijkse, student Social Work an buddy
& Sascha Van Gijzel)
15:00 -16:30 Accessible language (Zina Louter, coach Amerpoort and life expert)
18:00 Dinner in Antwerp. We’ll be heading by bus; departure at Hotel Corbie Geel at 18:00h.
Thursday 22/3
10:00 Workshop ‘IC Life framework’ (Jeroen)
12:00 Lunch
14:00 Workshop against prejudices about PID (Sascha)
16:00 Coffee break
16:30 – 17:30 Discussion about tip-cards (Jan)
(Lunchtime)
19:00 Travel to Brussels by train
14:00-17:30 Presentations of engineering students and PID about tools for shopping in a supermarket
(Boswachtershuis, Westerlo)
Monday 19/03
10:00 Reception
10:15 Making acquaintance serving pie and coffee
10:45 Game: training on direction signs on the campus
12:00 Afterthought and points of improvement on direction signs for PID on a University Campus
13:00 Lunch
14:30 Discussing about the design for a small sales cart accessible for PID, to be driven around on campus.
15:45 Coffee break
16:00 – 17:00 The rules for Meetings and Accessibility Cards; guidelines for organizers; guidelines for speakers (Milan Sverepa; Inclusion Europe)
20:30 – 22:00 For those who want it: A Belgian beer at ‘De oude brouwerij’
Tuesday 20/3
08:30 Assistive Communication Technology: use and training
12:00 Lunch
13:30 Try-out and developing welcome flyer (Rauni + Sari)
15:00 Try-out Blue Assist (Aleidis)
16:30 – 17:30 Meeting: afterthoughts with coffee
Wednesday 21/3
09:30 Presentation of Emmaüs, a centre of support for people with special needs (PID) on a University Campus in Lviv / Ukraine
(Christina Anglès d’Auriac)
11:00 Students’ Occupational Therapy about their project co-housing together with PID
13:00 Lunch (The partners + PID + coaches will spend the afternoon together)
14:00 An intellectual disability, do you know what it means? (Dave Bast, life expert; Lizzie Rijkse, student Social Work an buddy
& Sascha Van Gijzel)
15:00 -16:30 Accessible language (Zina Louter, coach Amerpoort and life expert)
18:00 Dinner in Antwerp. We’ll be heading by bus; departure at Hotel Corbie Geel at 18:00h.
Thursday 22/3
10:00 Workshop ‘IC Life framework’ (Jeroen)
12:00 Lunch
14:00 Workshop against prejudices about PID (Sascha)
16:00 Coffee break
16:30 – 17:30 Discussion about tip-cards (Jan)
(Lunchtime)
19:00 Travel to Brussels by train
IC Life Training 2 - Kemi, Finland: FEB 25 - MARCH 01, 2019
The second training within the framework of the Inclusive Campus Life project was organized by Lapin AMK (Lapland University of Applied Sciences) and took place in Kemi, Finland from 25 February until 1 March 2019. Except for Inclusion Europe, all IC Life partners participated in the training: Hogeschool Utrecht, Palacky University Olomouc, Thomas More Kempen and of course Lapin AMK. Each partner brought one or two life experts (people with intellectual disabilities) with them as participants in the training.
When the participants from the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Belgium and Finland were welcomed on the first day, some life experts (people with intellectual disabilities) were involved. They helped the participants with registering and gave everyone their badges and programs for the training. Programs with symbols depicting the various activities on the program were available for life experts and their coaches. In total, 25 participants who are life experts joined the training program. They were integrated in the training by almost always participating in the same activities as everyone else. Where necessary the program was adjusted to make the program interesting for everyone, including the life experts: some presentations were made interactive, sometimes participants got assignments for working together, sometimes there were games to get to know each other, etc. Several times life experts gave a presentation together with others. A few times, when the presentations were approached in a more theoretical or academic way, an alternative program was provided for the life experts and their coaches.
Thomas More Kempen, lead partner of the IC Life project, contributed to the training through providing a presentation by project manager Aleidis Devillé. She gave a global presentation about the IC Life project, where she gave more information about the project partners, trainings, events and outcomes. Moreover, the life experts did an exercise where they had to present themselves through a drawing they made in cooperation with the other participants from their country, explaining which things they are most proud of. This emphasized why this kind of training where life experts are included is so important.
Hogeschool Utrecht presented their work on the tandem corporation and gap mending. They did this in two sessions. The first presentation by Idman Nür and Rian Koot focused on tandem corporation, or how life experts and lecturers can cooperate to teach classes together. Because it is important to get to know each other to be able to work together we played a game first. After this, Idman and Rian discussed how they work together and which benefits and challenges they experienced. Then they gave the participants a challenge to try in pairs of two: each pair got one piece of paper and one pen, and each person got one word they had to draw, without communicating with the other person in their team and while both holding the pen at the same time. This made the participants experience the ways in which people can work together and the challenges that can exist. The second presentation by Hogeschool Utrecht was done by Idman Nür and Sascha Gijzel and focused on the gap mending principles. According to these principles it is important to involve clients or life experts in social work education. This way, they want to challenge the power disbalance that is often present, to create more understanding and to diminish the gap by giving them all the equal role of students, learning together. Idman then added to this by presenting her own experience with this approach at Hogeschool Utrecht.
Palacky University contributed to the training by giving a presentation titled ‘Inclusive campus and the third role of the university’. Here they presented the various ways in which they include life experts in their university and the things they would like to change in the future. One of the things they do is service learning: this is an experimental way of teaching in which students learn by providing services and reflection. The goal is to address the educational needs of the students and the needs of the community at the same time. They also explained that they inform all of their social work students about the IC Life project. Another thing they did was study the accessibility of their university campus. Moreover, they are thinking about how to create work placements for people with intellectual disabilities at their university. Finally, they finished their presentation by showing a video about a project which has a house where 25 persons with intellectual disabilities live.
Lapin AMK provided the biggest part of the program since they took the lead in organizing the training. They organized several presentations on different topics, such as when students with intellectual disabilities gave a presentation with their coaches about their experiences studying at the Kosmos campus of Lapin AMK. They explained that the students feel more confident and do more things independently, such as taking the bus, because of their studies, and that they feel part of the university community. The participants learned more about the situation specifically in Kemi through the presentation of Elina Penttinen about the work of social workers and social advisors in Kemi. Reetta Mietola from Helsinki University came to talk about inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities in the Finnish education system and how neoliberal views value education if it leads to paid labour after, which is not always possible for this group of people. Kaija Ray from the Vates Foundation also came to give a presentation about the transition to an open labour maret with equal employment opportunities for people with disabilities, long-term illnesses and partial work capacity. Finally, researcher Antti Teittinen from FAIDD gave a presentation about his study of the experienced economic situation and participation of people in need of disability services. He emphasized the problem of disability poverty in Finland. Besides these presentations, Lapin AMK also organized several other activities. Lecturer Raimo Vähänikkilä gave a drama workshop for all participants, in which different physical exercises lead to increased integration of the group. Moreover the participants visited the Work Training Foundation in Tornio, where (among others) people with intellectual disabilities got a training with the goal of leading them towards employment. Finally, we also visited the Swedish Finnish Folk High School in Haparanda, Sweden, where people with intellectual disabilities are included as students.
Besides these substantive activities, some leisure activities were organized too. An example was the visit to the Snow Castle in Kemi, or the activities at Kemi Marina where the participants could try snowshoe walking, snowmobiles, etc. We also visited the Dudeson Activity Park in Tornio. These activities were important because they lead to better informal contacts between the partners, life experts and coaches and encouraged the cultural exchange between the participants from different countries.
When the participants from the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Belgium and Finland were welcomed on the first day, some life experts (people with intellectual disabilities) were involved. They helped the participants with registering and gave everyone their badges and programs for the training. Programs with symbols depicting the various activities on the program were available for life experts and their coaches. In total, 25 participants who are life experts joined the training program. They were integrated in the training by almost always participating in the same activities as everyone else. Where necessary the program was adjusted to make the program interesting for everyone, including the life experts: some presentations were made interactive, sometimes participants got assignments for working together, sometimes there were games to get to know each other, etc. Several times life experts gave a presentation together with others. A few times, when the presentations were approached in a more theoretical or academic way, an alternative program was provided for the life experts and their coaches.
Thomas More Kempen, lead partner of the IC Life project, contributed to the training through providing a presentation by project manager Aleidis Devillé. She gave a global presentation about the IC Life project, where she gave more information about the project partners, trainings, events and outcomes. Moreover, the life experts did an exercise where they had to present themselves through a drawing they made in cooperation with the other participants from their country, explaining which things they are most proud of. This emphasized why this kind of training where life experts are included is so important.
Hogeschool Utrecht presented their work on the tandem corporation and gap mending. They did this in two sessions. The first presentation by Idman Nür and Rian Koot focused on tandem corporation, or how life experts and lecturers can cooperate to teach classes together. Because it is important to get to know each other to be able to work together we played a game first. After this, Idman and Rian discussed how they work together and which benefits and challenges they experienced. Then they gave the participants a challenge to try in pairs of two: each pair got one piece of paper and one pen, and each person got one word they had to draw, without communicating with the other person in their team and while both holding the pen at the same time. This made the participants experience the ways in which people can work together and the challenges that can exist. The second presentation by Hogeschool Utrecht was done by Idman Nür and Sascha Gijzel and focused on the gap mending principles. According to these principles it is important to involve clients or life experts in social work education. This way, they want to challenge the power disbalance that is often present, to create more understanding and to diminish the gap by giving them all the equal role of students, learning together. Idman then added to this by presenting her own experience with this approach at Hogeschool Utrecht.
Palacky University contributed to the training by giving a presentation titled ‘Inclusive campus and the third role of the university’. Here they presented the various ways in which they include life experts in their university and the things they would like to change in the future. One of the things they do is service learning: this is an experimental way of teaching in which students learn by providing services and reflection. The goal is to address the educational needs of the students and the needs of the community at the same time. They also explained that they inform all of their social work students about the IC Life project. Another thing they did was study the accessibility of their university campus. Moreover, they are thinking about how to create work placements for people with intellectual disabilities at their university. Finally, they finished their presentation by showing a video about a project which has a house where 25 persons with intellectual disabilities live.
Lapin AMK provided the biggest part of the program since they took the lead in organizing the training. They organized several presentations on different topics, such as when students with intellectual disabilities gave a presentation with their coaches about their experiences studying at the Kosmos campus of Lapin AMK. They explained that the students feel more confident and do more things independently, such as taking the bus, because of their studies, and that they feel part of the university community. The participants learned more about the situation specifically in Kemi through the presentation of Elina Penttinen about the work of social workers and social advisors in Kemi. Reetta Mietola from Helsinki University came to talk about inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities in the Finnish education system and how neoliberal views value education if it leads to paid labour after, which is not always possible for this group of people. Kaija Ray from the Vates Foundation also came to give a presentation about the transition to an open labour maret with equal employment opportunities for people with disabilities, long-term illnesses and partial work capacity. Finally, researcher Antti Teittinen from FAIDD gave a presentation about his study of the experienced economic situation and participation of people in need of disability services. He emphasized the problem of disability poverty in Finland. Besides these presentations, Lapin AMK also organized several other activities. Lecturer Raimo Vähänikkilä gave a drama workshop for all participants, in which different physical exercises lead to increased integration of the group. Moreover the participants visited the Work Training Foundation in Tornio, where (among others) people with intellectual disabilities got a training with the goal of leading them towards employment. Finally, we also visited the Swedish Finnish Folk High School in Haparanda, Sweden, where people with intellectual disabilities are included as students.
Besides these substantive activities, some leisure activities were organized too. An example was the visit to the Snow Castle in Kemi, or the activities at Kemi Marina where the participants could try snowshoe walking, snowmobiles, etc. We also visited the Dudeson Activity Park in Tornio. These activities were important because they lead to better informal contacts between the partners, life experts and coaches and encouraged the cultural exchange between the participants from different countries.