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.

<< Background >>The core initial group merged University of Burgos as well as Fundación Miradas (Spain), Fondacija hiljadu želja (Serbia) and FPDA-Portuguese Federation for Autism (Portugal) as assistance, protection and VET providers of people with autism spectrum disorder and their families. These organizations carried out a research study oriented to the needs identification and analysis of the target group, and the results showed the difficulties in relation to the confinement situation and the challenge faced by autistic people and their families, highlighting greater difficulties in managing daily life activities, increased levels of family stress and an increase in behavior problems. In relation to positive aspects, the role of online support received and its potential was remarked upon. In the same line it revealed the lack of support and the feeling of helplessness while many of them were capable before the pandemic. Conclusions of the mentioned research showed that the pathway to digital readiness of autistic people, their families and education professionals demands, on one hand, accessible digital technologies (training platforms) that facilitate training, learning and personal development for people with lower cognitive levels. On the other hand, specialized training for education professionals in the use of these technologies.The conclusions and perspectives of this research and the solid background (research activity related to practical application of intervention programs and on the ground permanent contact with organizations and VET providers) of University of Burgos, paved the way to set under the spotlight the Vocational and Educational training framework, the need of purposeful use of digital technologies in that educational scheme and development of digital skills and competences of people with autism spectrum disorder through appropriate programmes and initiatives, as underrepresented group in the digital scene.Together with the core initial group, Tady to mám rád, z.s. TTMR (Czech Republic) VET provider as project partner and the Associated Partners (see Associated Partners section) highlighted the following needs and challenges, which were compiled and shared during scheduled meetings in the project preparation phase:•Lack of accessible tools.•Lack of competences (teachers, students with disabilities and their families). •Lack of adapted training for professionals in the use and management of digital technologies. •Poorly adapted educational methodologies and few technological resources. As a second step, the mentioned needs analysis on the digital divide, lead to a broader vision by reviewing and ranking the Learning Management System LMS platforms that exist, selecting an educational platform of free and open source software, according to objetive criteria.IDEAL Project aims at addressing the mentioned needs through the provision of an adapted Learning Management System (LMS) following accessibility requirements for autistic people within VET contexts, the integration of educational methodologies that allows evaluating different digital tools according to their usefulness for people with autism, in a personalized manner for each individual development; and finally the provision of a methodology for digital training of people with ASD, families and education professionals.<< Objectives >>According to most research studies on the negative effects on the collective of autistic people, and in anticipation of the pandemic extending over time (or new similar situations arising in the near future),it is urgent to address the need of designing /reinventing educational services delivery using on line/virtual tools. First observations (Narzisi, 2020) on already developed online attention initiatives showed up that communication and cognitive difficulties of people with greater support needs, is an extra barrier towards an effective online support implementation.These barriers in accessing digital technologies are mainly caused by a lack of accessible tools; lack of competences (teachers, people with disabilities and their families); poorly adapted educational methodologies; and few technological resources. More specifically, digital tools are often designed for the general population without taking into account the needs of autistic people with lower cognitive levels (levels 1 and 2, according to the American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Tools adapted to the cognitive needs of such individuals through the incorporation of easily readable texts, and use of pictograms and graphic resources are strongly required.Such needs are similar to in relation to training, capacity building and online care methodologies. Another important obstacle is the lack of skills for the use and management of digital technologies by the professionals who attend them, for which adapted training is also required. In this sense, autistic students with lower cognitive levels need to improve their digital skills in order to bridge this gap and successfully use digital resources and technologies. Likewise, support and training for families is also essential. In addition, many autistic people and their families lack from the technological resources to autonomously access digital services such as online training and care.GENERAL OBJECTIVEThe objective of the project is to eliminate the digital divide suffered by autistic people with lower cognitive levels in VET contexts, facilitating autonomous equal access to digital technologies that would guarantee the continuity of their educational processes and their social and personal development, even in situations of lockdown.OPERATIONAL OBJECTIVES1. To adapt a Learning Management System (LMS) following accessibility requirements for autistic students within VET contexts.2. To design educational methodologies that allows evaluating different digital tools according to their usefulness for students with autism, in a personalized manner for each individual development. 3. To deliver a methodology for digital training<< Implementation >>The project methodology follows the 3 phases organizing the development of the Project Results and all complementary activities which are:PHASE I,PREPARATIONEach of the four VET organizations working with autistic people, will set up a mixed work group, made up of people with ASD with lower cognitive levels who are the final target group of the actions (5 students), education professionals (5 people) and families or caregivers (5 people). This group will participate as a discussion group for the definition of development areas and in the design and development of adaptations, methodology, tools, etc., validating the results obtained.PHASE II,DEVELOPMENTIn this phase, the educational platform of free and open source software selected by all partners will be adapted within the framework of the project. A schedule for the implementation of the adaptation and subsequent validation works will be drawn up. Adaptation at cognitive level, usability (attractive) and flexibility (adaptable to the profile and needs of each individual). The already identified needs will be categorized and an intervention proposal will be delivered, including the definition of the areas .This intervention proposal will be the basis for the compiling of virtual educational resources (technological applications) for online capacity building purposes of people with cognitive difficulties/ASD. These virtual educational resources will be validated by people with autism who are one of the target groups of the project in order to form this repository of accessible virtual educational resources. The intervention proposal will also be the basis for one of the methodological guides, aimed at autistic people, in which objectives, methodologies, and proposals for activities will be defined in each of the areas. A general proposal on the educational platform would also serve as the basis for designing individualized itineraries or educational processes, containing a combination of different activities and proposals so that the person with ASD will be able to achieve the different objectives of each area of development.Each application (virtual educational resource) will be analyzed to find out the required level of the individual: cognitive, functional, social and attitudinal levels.The evaluation (and the virtual matchmaking of both figures) of the cognitive level of each person and the required level of each resource bring up a new methodology that will be materialized as a tool, that will allow evaluating the adequacy of different virtual educational resources according to the abilities of autistic people, thus selecting those with the greatest relevance in terms of accessibility, usability and educational value to meet the needs of each user. PHASE III,VALIDATION AND DISSEMINATION<< Results >>The proposal faces two specific challenges that will be materialised:- Usability of the Learning Management System so that the main results will combine cognitive accessibility and appealing design, leading to (not only understandable but also) captivate and motivate the whole range of VET students with ASD even those facing stronger barriers.- Custom-made solutions, so that the main results will match/filter already existing technological applications in regard to autistic student cognitive level, among other criteria.The tangible results that will be obtained through the project and that will facilitate the access and use of digital technologies by autistic students are:2 Project Results will be developed during the project:R1. An educational friendly LMS usable autonomously by students with ADS with lower cognitive levels (level 1 and 2) adjustable to each individual. It will include an online repository of adapted and appropriate digital educational resources selected by a methodology framework (R2) that allows filtering which educational software would be the most appropriate one for students with autism and intellectual disabilities, taking into account their cognitive level and the characteristics of the software themselves.R2. A methodology for digital training of people with autism, their families, and VET professionals in the use of the educational platform.In regard to the Project Results workflow, the completion of R1 will sequentially lead the development of R2.Likewise, an extract on the lessons learnt and recommendations to face lockdown situations in the format of a protocol guide will be producedIn addition, one Learning, Teaching, Training Activity LTTA and 4 Multiplier Events will be conducted:• C1: Training exchange: To train and support in the use of R1 and R2 Project Results. • E1, E2, E3 and E4: Multiplier events in each partner country (Spain, Serbia, Czech Republic and Portugal) at local level.• E5: Final conference in Brussels (Belgium), organized by Autism Europe.The project will be developed with the involvement from the beginning of professionals, families and students (co-creation): A mixed work group will be set up by each of the four VET providers organizations working with autistic people (Czech Republic, Portugal, Serbia and Spain). This group, hereinafter Validation Group, will participate in the design and development of adaptations, methodology, tools, etc., validating the results obtained.

Participation in ECEC is considered a crucial factor for socialising children into formal education, and according to the final report “ECEC for children from disadvantaged backgrounds”, commissioned by the European Commission in 2012, ECEC benefits especially the most disadvantaged children, whose gains in cognitive and socio-emotional development are higher than for ‘average’ children. However, according to the report “Support for children with special educational needs”, from the DG for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion, these children tend to be less represented in ECEC, due to the lack of adapted environment. In the partner countries, only Slovenia, which acted as a “mentor partner”, has had an adapted provision of education for many years, including additional assistance for inclusive education, and the majority of children with special needs attends mainstream kindergartens and schools. This translates into the Early School Leaving (ESL) rate, which is only of 5%. In Czech Republic, the situation has very recently changed (2017), as a new legislation was passed, according to which the mainstream education should always be the first choice for children with special education needs, and they are legally entitled to receive support. In Spain, the education system is decentralised and regions were asked to develop “Attention to Diversity plans”. However, in the Canary Islands, no specific funding has been allocated to early attention to children with ASD, contrary to other regions such as the Basque Country, the Valencian Community or the Community of Madrid in which an average of 472€ per child is invested for additional support to inclusive education. This policy also translates into the ESL rate, which is of 19% in the Canary Islands, and 8% in the Basque country for example. In the Czech Republic, children with ASD are taken into account but they are usually segregated in separate classes. For both these countries, the ESL rate for disabled people is of 28%, while it is only of 5% for students without any disability. Taking all this into account, the specific objectives of the project were the followings: - Allow preschool teachers to have the necessary knowledge and competences to be able to include children with ASD in the activities of the classroom; - Reduce disparities in learning outcomes between children with and without ASD. The activities were the followings: - Using the partners’ knowledge and experience about inclusive education and ASD to create a report based on observations in schools, and from there create tailored experience-based teacher’s training; - Piloting and testing these outputs in 7 pre-schools. The project particularly resulted in: - The involvement of 27 pre-school teachers in the project’s activities; - 13 EU organisations (partner organisations & associated partners) becoming experts in the inclusion of children with ASD; - An experience-based teachers’ training, available for any interested stakeholder at EU and international level; - 4 multiplier events to disseminate the project’s results and raise awareness on the need for a more inclusive education for children with ASD; - 4 newsletters to inform stakeholders on the progress and results of the project; - 1 impact report comparing the situation of the children in the classroom, before and after the project, and some guidelines on how to use the online training. - 17 press articles or radio/TV interviews or reports. - 1 project website gathering all the information about the project, its results available for download, and its implementation, including contact details of each partner; - 2 signed declarations of local authorities willing to support the further exploitation of project’s results in the future; - Raised awareness to authorities about the need for inclusion of children with ASD in ECEC. At EU level, this project increased the quality of education Europe by making available two highly innovative intellectual outputs to encourage the take-up of initiatives to improve the inclusion of children with ASD.

"<< Background >>People with significant cognitive neurodiversity (Autism, Asperger's ...) are colloquially called ""disabled people"" underlining a certain degree of work inadequacy, that is, not being able to perform certain tasks. On the contrary, despite the intrinsic limitations, these people are able to offer a work contribution. Sometimes they have excellent skills. The project investigates, measures, highlights the peculiar characteristics of these people, overcoming the cultural meaning of incongruity, difference, discrimination that recalls a form of minus artes that in fact can translate into recognized, useful and available skills.The project therefore compares and develops criteria, methodologies and statistics useful to face this situation in a new way. It will provide a model and structured tools to be able to trigger repeatable processes, so that the inclusion of the disabled does not depend as it does today only thanks to the occasional sensitivity of individual social workers, employment agencies or compassionate entrepreneurs. People with neurodiversity, which impact on cognitive abilities resulting in the need for ongoing assistance and considerable difficulties in finding a job, are a relevant phenomenon (about one in 70 people).Many people, despite having latent skills that could potentially be spent on the labor market, remain outside the active life, burdening families and welfare expenditure.This happens both because there are currently no suitable tools to highlight and enhance these latent skills, and because there is not even a sufficiently widespread awareness that this can be done, how it can be done and the results it can give.The Partnership and network of the Erasmus Plus project, as part of its complementary research activities related to skills, faces the challenge of researching, sharing and experimenting in the different European contexts the appropriate tools to be able to carry out a screening on people with neurodiversity, and to trigger a virtuous and structured process to maximize the opportunities for employment of citizens with neurodiversity.The project starts from the consideration that until now the problem of neurodiversity has never been systematically addressed in terms of identification and enhancement of skills, for various reasons:- because criteria and tools have not yet been developed to be able to fully conduct a correct assessment of skills in this type of people;- families do not know that this could be done and the benefits it would bring;- support organizations need specific tools to overcome the current role mainly focused on the recognition of rights and assistance;- companies do not know that they could successfully insert those neurodiversity carriers, who possess useful skills at work;- more generally because the culture of neurodiversity is not very widespread and poorly known, and there is a tendency to restrict it to the most serious cases and to observe only the deficient aspects.<< Objectives >>Project aims to value the talent that everyone has, even if hidden. To highlight it and give it a recognized and verifiable value as a key to access the world of work.It is technically and legally possible, the project intends to demonstrate feasibility through a practice that becomes an operational model for targeted placement.The proposal has the following specific objectives:1. adapt and implement frameworks, procedures and activities for the identification, assessment and Validation of skills of people with neurodiversity;2. demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the service for the type of user;3. define a model with descriptive for the adoption of large-scale Validation for targeted placement;4. equip the operators of the agencies at work with training courses to carry out skills Validation services for people with neurodiversity;5. prepare the key elements for the digitization of part of the process (Taxonomies and ontologies) and for the registration of profiles and certificates on the Blockchain.<< Implementation >>The Validation of skills is the proposed tool that allows an assessment, an evaluation, a confirmation that can be applied to training, research and selection of personnel, to the management of human resources.Project exchanges, adapts, experiments frameworks and processes for identifying and validating skills for people with neurodiversity in favor of employability and inclusion with a view to enhancing ""TALENTI LATENTI” (latent talents).1. Research and exchange of good practices on the Validation service and network construction.The activity of the technical team provides for the systematization and adaptation of the Atlas of professions framework, National guidelines for Validation and on good practices for the identification, evaluation and validation of skills for validation purposes for people with neurodiversity, providing a solid and structured scientific technical base for the realization of the service accompanied by procedures, tools, indications for field experimentation.2. Pilot experimentation and modeling.Implementation of skills identification, assessment and Validation services for a group of 30 people with neuro diversity.a) Qualitative and quantitative survey of cognitive and non-cognitive skills conducted on a sample of people with neurodiversity.b) Qualitative survey of a sample of companies to collect needs, problems and suggestions for this type of potential collaborator.c) Evaluation of the results and comparison with companies and service operators at work.Development and publication of the framework (with tools, metrics, criteria, procedures and standard costs) for cognitive and non-cognitive skills in neurodiversity based on the results of the previous steps, and compilation of a repertoire of typical recurring skills.3. Training tools for Employment Agencies operatorsDesign of training courses for operators who are in contact with people with neurodiversity, and / or those who need to specialize on these issues. For example social workers, support teachers, trainers, navigators, medical and paramedical figures, etc .. in addition to the assessors who will carry out the assessments of competence, and the therapists who will take care of the strengthening.The courses will be modular, so as to be able to build an ad hoc training path by selecting the modules suited to the needs of each professional profile.They will be provided both through DaD technologies (Distance Learning, e-learning) and face-to-face, and certificates of competence and formal training credits will be issued.The courses will be delivered through the collaboration of training centers and universities.The training project will be released.Experimental edition of a course aimed at the agreed categories.4. Parent TrainingProgram and contents design for parent training (consultancy and training service) specifically designed and aimed at families, to instill or increase the awareness that in their children, even those with low functioning, there are skills that they can discover and enhance, and that thanks to this they could be used in work contexts, as well as how to accompany them in the correct way in the path of a possible development of skills.5. Web Platform for managing skills certificatesand user profiles, statistics and other survey and assessment toolsPublishing the ontology, use interoperable data formats for the results, storing credits on a blockchain, and working with ESCO guarantee the maximum openess and replicability of the project to any subject interested.The proposed instruments enable certificated information for employability of neurodiversity people both on online job platforms and job agencies6. Management and MonitoringMonitoring of the processes, contents and outcomes inherent to the various modules of the project, submitted and verified by specially trained independent evaluators.Implementation of a systematic monitoring activity based on the objectives ond outcomes<< Results >>The proposal foresees the following results:result1. Drafting of a specific service process framework, tools for highlighting skills in neuro-diversity by enhancing experiences in partnership countries.Indicators: skills described, skills recognized by Validation authoritiesBaseline: zero (in this moment there are no frameworks and a dedicated procedure for the Validation of skills acquired in formal, non-formal and informal areas for neuro-diversity people)result2. Service procedure validated through the implementation of a limited experimentation on young people with neuro-diversity in 3 European countries.Verification of the effectiveness and usability of the procedures and validation tools for the type of user on 30 experimentation users.Indicators: no. In start-up, no. Certified subjects, no. Certified skills, effective proceduresBaseline: zero (the Validation of people with disabilities is not practiced, except for the Validation coming out of the curricular training courses)result3. qualification of tutor and assessors for validation services in the field of neuro-diversityIndicator:Qualitative evaluation by the participants in the courseQuantitative evaluation after 6 months of the validation procedures carried out by operators outside the partnership.Baseline: to date, there are hundreds of people with qualifications for Validation but without specialization in neuro-diversityresult4. definition and implementation of a path to raise awareness and involve familiesIndicator:Qualitative evaluation at the exit of the parent training activitiesresult5. equipment suitable for digitization related to job platform to insert job profiles of target groups. Interoperability with data base, algorithms, artificial intelligenceIndicator: Qualitative assessment by platforms for matching supply and demandAdoption of outputs (certificates) and publication on the platform.Baseline: zero (there is no job platform to promote or share Certifications for our target group).The project operates on a free field and has great growth potential.There are national and European rules that support the proposal.The project proposes the practical realization with a first experimentation and with tools suitable for large-scale application."