<< Objectives >>Today people with ASD are very often excluded from the labor market. In many cases, the percentage of autistic people full time employed are the half as much as people with others disabilities. Unemployment often implies social exclusion and failure in self-fulfillment. The main aim of INFUSE is to reduce occupational gap for people with autism through the creation of an educational programme for job placement, enhancing their quality of life, consequently reducing the rehabilitation costs.<< Implementation >>The project will firstly analyze study cases and best practices of job placement pathways of people with ASD in EU (Activity 1). Based on this, a training course for adults with ASD will be defined to make them gain new field-specific skills in farming officinal herbs and transversal skills for job employment (Activity 2). Such training will be made concrete through a piloting (Activity 3). Finally, awareness raising and dissemination actions will be carried out (Activity 4).<< Results >>INFUSE will realize a compendium of best practices of other EU experiences (Result 1). This will be the basis for realizing the INFUSE Training course (Result 2) defining the best educational methodologies for supporting job placement of ASD adults. Piloting the training course will allow participants to acquire new skills for future employment, measured through an Assessment plan (Result 3). A dissemination strategy (Result 4) will be defined to ensure widespread sharing of project activities.

The three partner organizations of the project, Asociación Mi Hijo y Yo (Canary Islands, Spain), NCD (Cyprus), and Autisme Europe (Belgium), collaborated on this project to explore the benefits that non-formal learning activities bring to autistic adolescents, confronting and learning from the good practices and work methodologies that each of these organizations implements in their countries. The objective of this collaboration has been the implementation of inclusion initiatives aimed at adolescents on the autism spectrum that are always more fruitful and effective.Specifically, the objectives of the project have been the following:- Capacity-building activities for youth workers, to enable them to develop their skills in non-formal learning activities with autistic teenagers. In this way, the project has promoted the social inclusion of autistic adolescents through the implementation of more inclusive non-formal learning activities by partner associations and other European associations.- Improve the access of autistic adolescents to youth activities in order to promote the development of their social skills, which allows them, among other things, easier integration into the labor market.- Promote better knowledge about the situation of young people with autism and about efficient inclusion methodologies.The activities that have allowed the achievement of these objectives have been:- Organization of staff training events (capacity building activities) so that youth workers from different European countries (Spain, Cyprus and Belgium) could observe, learn and exchange good practices on different youth work methodologies implemented with autistic adolescents.- Publication of a booklet of good practices entitled “Booklet of good practices for the inclusion of autistic teenagers in non-formal learning activities”. It is a compilation of good practices put in place by the partner organizations of the project and by other European organizations that work with young people with autism. The booklet aims to raise awareness about the importance of non-formal learning activities for autistic adolescents and their effectiveness, and at the same time it wants to be a catalog from where youth workers from all over Europe can get ideas on inclusive activities, with comments and feedback for that can be implemented and improved.- Creation of an online platform to upload ideas for inclusive activities and get feedback from other youth workers in other countries on their implementation.The project has been carried out in a transnational way because it has included the observation, the exchange of ideas and the comparison of ways of working of different systems and cultures, allowing the participants to learn from each other and acquire new skills thanks to the exchange of good practices.The project had a great impact directly on the participating organizations, their youth workers and therefore on the young people who participate in its activities. The youth workers involved improved the competencies linked to their professional profiles, such as the ability to implement innovative non-formal learning activities and had the possibility to see the work methodologies of other European countries. Thanks to these skills and experiences acquired, as revealed from the focus groups organized within the framework of the project, the participants feel that they have increased their motivation and satisfaction in their daily work and have also improved their professional profile. The partner organizations, more generally, benefited from the project as they were able to work in a more transnational dimension and improve their skills when collaborating with partners from other countries. To reach a wider number of beneficiaries of the project activities, namely other European organizations that work with young people with disabilities, partners made available in English the Booklet of good practices, as a way to share also outside the project Consortium the exchange of good practices generated within the project. These activities can be an example for other organizations that want to implement an innovative approach in addressing the inclusion of youth with disabilities. Within the project activities, an online collaboration platform was also created, in the form of a Facebook group, to allow youth workers, professionals and other organizations working with youth to share experiences and discuss the role of non-formal activities in the inclusion of young people with autism. Finally, the project, thanks to its dissemination actions, made it possible to raise awareness of the importance of inclusion in leisure moments and non-formal activities of young people with disabilities.

There is a notable increase of cases of people with ASD and, accordingly, higher number of adults and elderly with ASD. So, there is an urgent need of disposing professionals with enough knowledge, skills and competences to provide a quality and efficient service to these persons and their families. In this regard, IPA+ project responds to these needs to better prepare different kind of professionals for competent care or attention in order to respond to the demands of this population. Thus, the project aims to strengthening skills of professionals working (presently or expected in the future) with people with autism through the development, at European level, of a course that will be based on basic and specific and real curricular requirements. So, the project entails the development, implementation, transfer and dissemination of an innovative training focused on a minimum package of theoretical contents, intervention strategies as well as professional competences and attitudes enabling professionals dispose a basic background to deal with autism in different labour settings. Moreover, the specific objectives of IPA+ are: - To know the curricular and training requirements of a course of this nature addressed to professionals working with people with ASD.- To define the basic knowledge and competences about autism that every professional must have for a competent and satisfactory care based on the research about curricular requirements.- To design a new training and work based learning for the development of competent professionals from different fields.- To implement this training in a sample of professionals in the different countries participating in the project.- To evaluate the quality of the course.- To make freely available all project outputs for potential users and stakeholders through the development of a toolkit.- To hold national and international conferences for disseminating the project outputs. - To establish a network of people working on ASD projects for knowledge exchange and co-creation.IPA+ involves 5 entities from 4 different countries: - Polibienestar Research Institute from the University of Valencia, Spain (coordinator of the project).- Autismo Burgos, Spain.- Portuguese Federation for Autism, Portugal.- Serbian Society of Autism, Serbia.- Autism Europe, Belgium.The coordinator is a research institute at a public university with a large know-how on ASD, research and methodologies. The three involved autism associations will be involved in the different activities in a close contact with our target users. And, an international association with strategic alliances with a large number of partners will be in charge of the project dissemination and evaluation.The project will begin with a research on curricular and training requirements for professionals in the field of ASD through a mixed methodology: review of the literature and the organisation of focus groups with relevant stakeholders. The results of this research will be crucial for the development of the subsequent phases of the project. Secondly, the curriculum will be developed on the basis of the curricular research and will be validated with experts through a Delphi study. Once the curriculum will be ready, partners will develop the associated learning units. Through a complementary learning activity, these learning units will be piloted among key persons from each partner organisation and also validated by the whole consortium. This learning activity will be very relevant to train the future trainers of the course which will be implemented in Spain, Portugal and Serbia by a blended format. Finally, the main findings and outputs developed in the project will be compiled in an attractive, useful and easy-to-use format through a Toolkit which will be available at the IPA+ website.IPA+ will deliver a research, a curriculum and associated learning units, a validated course and a toolkit for a wide kind of professionals working with people with ASD or interested in this labour sector. These outputs will be supported by a comprehensive and integrative assessment along the different activities framed in the project, as well as by a complete package of dissemination activities, such as multiplier events, a project website, eNewsletters, etc. So, IPA+ is expected mainly to:1. Raise awareness and increase knowledge of ASD for different profiles of professionals.2. Increase background, motivation, willingness and confidence of professionals to work with people with ASD. 3. Increase collaboration and cooperation between service providers in the field of autism and other organisations from different fields: education, healthcare, social services, etc.4. Generate a good practice at European level regarding training of professionals working with people with ASD agreed by experts from different countries.5. Create open-access resources and outputs for a wide and relevant audience of stakeholders.

<< Objectives >>All partners already support ASD individuals to develop their employment opportunities. However, this project aims atwidespread support across the EU that both increases the chances of ASD jobseekers to penetrate the labour market, andhelps implement effective and inclusive practices within both learning and working environments, increasing theemployment rate within the ASD community, improving mental well-being, promoting social inclusion whilst reducingeconomic costs for EU member states.<< Implementation >>This project will implement many activities, from online & face-to-face meetings to desktop / field research & focus groups toensure top quality standards are upheld. It will develop international research reports; an ASD employment guide;neurodiverse-friendly digital training modules & learning pathways; Youtube channel; digital learning platform & website;SEN specialist reviews; Europe-wide digital map & network; product testing; product publication; & Europe-widedissemination of findings.<< Results >>This project will have multiple outcomes: The Research Report will define the requirements & challenges of those with ASD;The Employment Guide offers solutions that meet the needs of all stakeholders; The Digital Training Platform will host selfaccessed, interactive digital training pathways; The Map & Network will connect all stakeholders & provide easy access tosupport. The combined result will increase employment, improve well-being, enhance inclusion & reduce economic costsacross the EU.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects 1 in 89 individuals in Europe (ASDEU Study, 2018) and 1 in 54 in the US (CDC, 2020). Teachers in public schools report receiving inadequate training and rate their efficacy in working with young people with autism as low. As EU Council recommends “investing in basic skills has become more relevant than ever”, the project intellectual outputs are designed to help teachers facilitate the acquisition of key competencies by their students.In supporting the development of key competences of youth with disabilities, a special attention is given in the current project – Health Education for Young People with Disabilities (HEDY), to raising the level of personal, social and learning competences to improve health-conscious, future-oriented life management. They imply integration of the components of a healthy mind, body and lifestyle. By the proposed activities, raising teachers capacity, the project reduces disparities in acquiring key competencies & tackles discrimination, minimising the gap between youth with ASD & typical youth. A complex training program of 4 e-learning modules (interactive, with easy to access & use instruments for teaching) will be developed and available for free in 5 european languages: English, French, Romanian, Icelandic & Greek. Young people with disabilities taught by trained teachers will thus develop key personal self care competencies. Moreover, youth with disabilities will contribute to the co-creation of the e-learning modules, thus resulting in a Guideline for youth participation output. Putting together the 5 partners' expertise and the support of 8 associated partner schools, an attractive, innovative & unique project will be developed, impacting over 1000 teachers and through them, a large community of highly vulnerable youth. The project will produce significant results over the next two years and beyond, through training and available, free, online based, high quality learning content.The project has the following objectives:O1. Strengthen the knowledge & skills of addressing key competencies related to personal development and health for 800 teachers from the 4 partners’ countries through a complex 4 modules e-learning programO2 Improve access of teachers to high-quality ICT based learning through dissemination of innovative outputs towards 200 local & national school stakeholdersO3. Support self representation of young people with ASD through involvement of 18 youth in content piloting and development of a Guideline on youth participation The project will have the following direct results:- 800 teachers from mainstream and special schools from Romania, Greece, Iceland and Belgium will demonstrate (through pre and post-training questionnaires) increased knowledge and skills in tackling personal development and health education with young people with disabilities.- 200 stakeholders from NGOs, schools, local educational authorities will have a better understanding of the existing training program and will be able to further disseminate it. - At least 18 young people from 8 associated partners and CSEI will have been involved in the project participating in e-learning modules piloting and guideline for participation development. - At least 90 teachers from special schools and 90 ASD family members (parents) will be impacted by the Guideline for youth participation. The project employs an evidence-based approach and will generate a set of four ICT based e-learning modules for teachers from mainstream and special schools, providing a highly structured content. The main outputs of the project will consist of key relevant contents associated with ready-made visual aids which will ensure immediate impact for the final target group – children & youth with disabilities (especially ASD). The 4 e-learning modules have the following themes:Explaining development and puberty to children and young people with disabilities.Teaching personal hygiene & self care for children and young people with disabilities.Sexual and reproductive health education for teenagers with disabilities Legal and policy aspects related to health education of children with disabilities.The project is innovative in content and design of the intellectual outputs. An element of innovation brought in by the consortium is the involvement of the young people with disability in the process of development of learning contents. The project demonstrates unicity in approaching health education of youth with disabilities, a problematic and complex issue. The involvement of young people will ensure production of simple & self-explanatory visuals that will aid teachers and ultimately youth in tackling health education. The cross-sectoral, multi-layered intervention that the current consortium provides proves a high quality of the outputs and results, followed by a strong dissemination and sustainability phase.