EU project
‘Training for Professionals working with individuals with multiple disabilities and visual impairment on finding jobs and opportunities that benefit society’ (J.O.B.S MDVI)
aims of the project
The partnership and its work group includes a range of expertise - adult educators, vocational trainers, special education teachers, university lecturers, researchers, private consultants, together with user organisations.
It will look at the issues involved in enabling professionals to support the target group to develop their citizenship, including routes to and forms of work, continuing education, personal and social development, and the methodologies, materials and staff training required to achieve this.
For a disabled person, reaching the labour market is a major challenge, as it implies overcoming major challenges in school, when going to university, taking the local bus etc. The partnership will address ways to ovecome some of these barriers and help to implement the UN Declaration of Rights for People with Disabilities.
project objectives
To gather best practices from across the partner countries, which will enable staff to be trained and to develop their skills and competencies to support individiuals with multiple disabilities and visual impairments in the following areas
- Job mediation (job coaching)
- Valued activities
- Social and personal skills
- Assistive technology
Guidelines will be collated, including best practices, for dissemination in the participating countries.
Leonardo da Vinci Partnership 2011 to 2013
Training for Professionals working with individuals
with multiple disabilities and visual impairment on
finding jobs and opportunities that benefit society
Report on 1st Meeting
Location: Lega del filo d’oro, Osimo, Italy
Date of meeting: 4th – 6th October 2011
Participating countries: Iceland, Italy, Hungary, France, Denmark, Netherlands, Romania, Ireland, UK, Germany, Finland.
Aims of Project:
- To explore and identify specific issues for professionals in addressing lifelong learning and work related issues for people with multiple disabilities and visual impairment,( MDVI) during transition into the workplace, at any time whether it be at transition from school, from a sheltered workshop environment, or from the home environment to the workplace.
- To train and develop the skills and competencies of professionals, to be better enabled to meet the needs of people with MDVI during the transition into the workplace and whilst in the workplace.
- To develop methodologies and establish guidelines to support and train professionals to meet this specific need of the target audience. E.g.: Through development and training of the professionals skills and competencies to support people with MDVI in the areas of:
- Personal and social skills
- Valuable activities
- Job coaching
- Assistive technology
This will better enable professionals to support people with MDVI in finding jobs and opportunities which enable them to make a positive contribution and to take a full and active participation in society.
Aims of 1st meeting in Italy:
- Clarify the aims of the project plan and the specific areas to be explored. (Personal and social skills, valuable activities, job coaching, assistive technology.)
- To confirm how the project will be executed.
- To confirm the format of the four forthcoming meetings on the specific areas as outlined above.
Clarification of the four specific areas being explored through the project:
Training for professionals and development of their skills to support people with MDVI in the transition to work and within the workplace have been identified in the following areas:Job mentoring, valued activities, assistive technology, personal and social skills.
Job mentoring
A support system that helps the client to work as interdependently and with as much autonomy as possible whilst taking part in work.
Valued activities
A valued activity is active participation - being part of a context in relation to other people/society/community
Personal and social skills
Having the skills to interpret and interact with other people in your surroundings
Assistive technology
Technology, not necessarily hi-tech, needs to meet the individual requirements of the person and their assessment needs to be holistic. E.g. what functions, processes does the person need to carry out, what is the most appropriate type of technology to enable them to do this.
Sharing best practice and creating a knowledge base.
Each of the above areas will be explored at the next four meetings which take place over the next two years. Participating countries will bring their best practices to the meeting, with specific presentations by partners who are making significant progress in the particular area. The ‘best practice guidelines’ information and contact details of the partner country supplying particular guidelines will also be available on the JOBS MDVI websitefor professionals interested in finding out more.
In addition, discussions have centred around the possibility of developing a DVD to demonstrate some of the best practices around the four specific focus areas.
Dissemination of the project by Positive Eye
Positive Eye will regularly disseminate the information about the project after each meeting in the following ways:
- Short report placed on Positive Eye’s website summarising the outcomes of each meeting.
- Email to mailing list (250 professionals) directing them to this information on Positive Eye’s website and also to the further information available on the JOBS MDVI website.
Further to this the following platforms will be used over the period of the next two years:
- Update at the Northwest Heads of Service of Visual Impairment meetings – held termly.
- RNIB INSIGHT magazine, - request to be made to write an article about the project at the end of the first year (by September 20120 and again at the end of the second year (by July 2013)
- VIEW conference – National Heads of Service for Visual Impairment Conference held in March 2012– request will be made to give short update.
- Letter/flyer to other organisations supporting people with MDVI, informing them of the project and sources of further information about the project. E.g. Action for Blind People, RNIB employment advisors. (By December 2011)
Project schedule
2nd Meeting: 24th – 26th Jan 2012. Job Mediation, Germany
3rd Meeting: 2nd May – 4th May 2012. Valued activities, France
4th Meeting: 4th – 6th Sept 2012. Social and personal skills, Denmark
5th Meeting: 22nd – 24th Jan 2013. Assistive technology, (venue to be decided.)
6th Meeting: 23rd – 25th April 2013. Final meeting, Netherlands.
2nd Meeting
23rd - 27th January 2012
The group met at the Southern Bavarian Residential Homes and Workshops for the Blind and Partially Sighted (SWW) in Munich during the week 23rd - 27th January 2012
The focus of the week was job mediation. Best practices and the situation regarding job coaching for each country was shared during the week
Read more about the situation regarding job coaching in each country.:
At the centre people with MDVI are employed within workshops and make and sell a wide range of products as well as offering services to the local city community. They have a paper destruction workshop where confidential papers from some of the large companies are destroyed and prepared for being recycled. Additionally, there are people with MDVI employed within the pottery workshop where they make and sell a wide range of ceramics to the hotel industry as well as selling them at local craft fairs. Because their work is so well respected, they are now often asked to attend craft fairs. There is a an art workshop where they have a resident artisit who works alongside an art therapist to create a range of products which the people with MDVI make. The tasks are broken down into small steps to enable each individual to take part according to their abilities and strengths. .
They also have a small workshop where the wire connections on beer bottle tops are removed, this process is fairly straightforward and means the people working here can do this task quite independently.
They also have a packaging workshop, where they pack materials for companies e.g. M&M, Ikea etc. They are currently making badges for the staff in Ikea.
The people attending the centre also take part in drama and music classes and again they are well respected within the wider city community taking part in festivals and events to showcase their work The work done was very progressive and it was an excellent example of good practice demonstrating the 'can do' approach focussing on the skills and abilities of the individuals working within the centre.
Here are some photographs.
Art workshop, beautiful simple figures made for sale.
Removing the wires from beer bottle tops for recycling
Loom weaving to make rugs
Making ceramics for the hotel industry and to sell at craft fairs
Wooden art made in the art workshop
