The challenge being addressed and the project objectives
The majority of approaches targeting issues of intellectual disability (ID) are either focused on persons with the intellectual disability (PWID) or on professionals in an effort to equip them with appropriate educational and support strategies. The need to provide parents with necessary information and skills in order to better support their children with ID is often overlooked. Parents, though, play a significant part in supporting their children to become active members of the society and to have good quality of life.
The ELPIDA project aimed to provide family members and parents of PWID with necessary skills and knowledge in order for them to feel more confident and competent to provide support and empowerment to children of all ages with ID.
ELPIDA achieved this goal by developing a free-to-use e-learning platform, which contains six interactive educational modules providing more training, awareness raising and/or attitude change on key areas that have been identified with the active engagement of family members of PWID. These topics / areas are: Human rights, Communication, Ageing, Stress management, Transition to adulthood, and Sexual health.
The training material, available in seven languages (Danish, English, French, German, Greek, Norwegian and Portuguese), offers the flexibility of distance learning.
The project partners believe that knowledge to be gained through this educational platform will have a positive impact on people with ID and will contribute to a better transition to adulthood, social inclusion, and better quality of life in general.
ELPIDA aimed to create a large group of well informed and adequately equipped participants who will feel competent to support the needs of their family member with ID. Furthermore the project aimed to create an active community of practice with high quality exchange of knowledge.