Abstract:

The project ENABLIN+ is an international partnership for the period of 01/01/2014 to 31/12/2016. It's addressed to the needs of children and youth with complex and intense support needs (CISN), their caregivers and supporters. It wants to develop a system of interdisciplinary in-service training, where professionals and parents of various professional backgrounds learn together, with the aim of improving inclusion, promoting de-institutionalization and enhancing quality of life of the children with CISN, at various age levels. ENABLIN+ promotes an inclusive intervention, not only in social life, but also in education. In this context, this work aims to present and discuss the concept of “best practices” in inclusive intervention based in real world cases. To study that subject we prepare a seminar, where 12 cases of “best practices” in inclusive intervention was presented.

The institutions, services and projects working in the field of inclusion of children and young people with permanent SEN were asked to submit, via the project Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Projetos-de-Inclus%C3%A3o/293506687489384?ref=hl) or via website (www.enablin.jimdo.com) their best practices in a seminar with a duration of 4 hours. We assumed a triadic concept of best practices: IDEAS (Innovative and/or challenging ideas for the inclusion of children and youth); PROCESSES (services, practices, methodologies) and RESULTS (examples, people, and success stories).

Each communication was strictly to a duration of 6 minutes and was supported by a set of 20 slides, made from a template (previously available for download) that ran automatically. The aim was that the communication reports about the innovative character of each best practice, demonstrating their importance and the inclusive impact. In this article we analyze the 12 submitted communications, about the concept of "best practices", its innovative character, implementation process and results obtained. We also explored the results of the assessment of the presentations and evaluation of the seminar methodology made by the participants.

The results indicated that the participants were very satisfied with the methodology used (Global average of 4.13/5), and with the presentations (global average of 4.05/5). Finally we discuss the effectiveness of define best practices in a triadic approach, in order to promote reflection and implication for more inclusive interventions. The ENABLIN+ Project Seminar was an important milestone for the project's progress as an important point of reflection and sharing of information on best practices in the field of disability.

Keywords:

Best practices, Inclusive intervention, ENABLIN+, Research project