Over the course of two years, from November 2017 to November 2019, Lebenshilfe coordinates the EU project COESI – Change Organizations to Enable Social Inclusion on a European level in close cooperation with four disability care organizations from Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Slovenia.
Social inclusion is one of the main principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Social inclusion means active participation in society, which in this context also involves the establishment of relationships with other people. Disability care organisations can support this process.
In doing so, they are faced with ever-shifting challenges: Along with the task of providing support, safety, and protection for people with disabilities, they are also to facilitate their participation in society and to support them in establishing relationships with other people. Person-centred approaches have proven helpful tools in accomplishing these goals with the interests of the supported people at heart. Individuals are always at the center of these approaches; their major purpose is to afford them a valued role in society.
Shifting challenges also call for organisations to change. Organisations are required to shift from providing more general services toward offering individual support services in favour of increased self-empowerment and social inclusion.
The COESI project aims to facilitate this organisational transformation process. COESI tackles this endeavour on various levels by involving management, employees, and people with disabilities in the conceptualization and development of project results, as their know-how and expertise are of crucial value to the project’s success.
Within the framework of this project, the partnership wants to
- contribute to the transformation process within organisations for people with disabilities
- bring self-empowerment and social inclusion into the focus of disability care
- develop and hone forms of assistance for people with disabilities
- support people with intellectual disabilities in establishing relationships in their social environment
- create additional training opportunities for experts in the field
- formulate strategies and recommendations for service providers in disability care and for political decision-makers.
Project Results:
- Self-assessment tool for service providers: to allow for a qualitative analysis of the degree of inclusion in the respective organization and service
- Assessment tool for users: to evaluate the services’ effects in terms of social inclusion
- Action plan for social inclusion: connects the different evaluation results and contains strategies and recommendations for disability care service providers
- Seminar for disability care workers
- Seminar for managers and executives
- “Fit for Inclusion” counsellor training: users gain additional competences to counsel organisations.
Target Groups:
- People with intellectual disabilities
- Assistants of people with disabilities
- Managers in organisations for people with disabilities
- Disability care organisations
