The European project on IMproving ASsistance in inclusive educational settings (IMAS) comes to an end today, 30 November. Project partners met in Brussels earlier this month to finalise their overall recommendations for the role of learning and support assistants in inclusive education, reflect on the project results and on the partnership, finalise the dissemination strategy and make plans for the future

The IMAS project has been a one-year project, funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. It focused on the education of disabled children and young people in Europe, with the aim of establishing a common framework for scrutinising how assistance is organised in schools. The main objectives of the project were to understand the contribution of assistance services to inclusive education for disabled children and young people, to develop recommendations for the further development of these services and (if necessary) to enhance them through the project activities.

The project stemmed from the fact that the European Union and all member states have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and, therefore, the European educational systems have to become inclusive. All children and young people should be able to rely on professional staff to enable their learning and participation in school. For disabled children and young people, non-teaching staff (learning support assistants, teaching assistants or similar) play a vital role in enabling them to successfully engage in every aspect of compulsory and post compulsory education.

The project was launched in Gleisdorf, Austria, in November 2016 and has been led by Chance B (Austria), a social service provider operating in the Eastern part of Styria, offering support to every person who needs it to live will in the region. In addition to CSIE (UK), the other project partners were: Vision – Agency for social development (Bulgaria), a legal entity with non-profit purpose which works in public benefit, specialising as a service provider in the area of culture and social development; ARCIL (Portugal) providing a wide range of services in the rehabilitation field for disabled children, young people and adults or those categorised as having special needs; the European Association of Service providers for Persons with Disabilities (EASPD), a non-profit European umbrella organization currently representing over 12,000 social and health services for disabled people; and TENENET o.z. (Slovakia) an organisation established as a social and psychological advisory centre helping disabled clients, children in social need and youth with behavior problems.

During the course of the project, partners considered the range of support available to disabled pupils in schools, and established a common framework for scrutinising how assistance is organised so that disabled children are supported in ways which are consistent with the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

At the beginning of the project the partners systematically surveyed the current state of assistance services in their countries and, collectively, compiled a Status Quo Report for all project countries. These surveys yielded an overview of the different systems. They also enabled partners to formulate recommendations for the role of learning and support assistants in inclusive education on a European level. Another main activity was a five-day training event involving assistants, teachers, education experts, parents and former pupils from the countries of all project organisations. The participants at this event discussed the recommendations, shared experiences and worked on scrutinising processes of inclusive education in their national context and developing a set of improvement suggestions as relevant. Subsequently all partners developed a set of recommendations specific to their country, based on the general recommendations already developed at European level.

At the end of the project all partners organised and held stakeholder meetings to disseminate the national recommendations among decision makers in the education system and at all levels of policy and administration. All project activities were based on a participative, practical approach and involved as many assistants, pupils and stakeholders as possible.

Project outputs and results include:

• Description of the current status of assistance services in each partner country
• Summary in a Status-Quo Report covering all partner countries
• Recommendations for the role of learning and support assistants in inclusive education, at European level
• Recommendations for the role of learning and support assistants in inclusive education at national level for each participating country
• Training Activity Workshop Design
• 23 participants at the training activity
• 157 participants at the stakeholder meetings
• Dissemination of the project results through a range of channels

The IMAS project has set an important first step to draw attention to assistance services at European and National level, on the understanding that these play an important role in developing a more inclusive education system consistent with the requirements of the UNCRPD. The project has clearly demonstrated that there are no clear and consistent frameworks for availability, quality and responsibilities of learning and support assistants in schools and other educational settings. The project has also shown that in some regions of Europe the possibility of making assistance services routinely available to disabled children does not exist. It is anticipated that the recommendations developed during this project will provide orientation for decision makers and assist them in further developing assistance services in their countries, in ways which are consistent with the requirements of the UNCRPD.