Description
The project's aims to: Develop services adapted to the needs of young and adults with intellectual and multiple disabilities. For this we will create a working group of people with different trainings and competences in the field of disability in order to adapt what it is existent in Romania as therapies and methods for the target group of the project: people with intellectual and multiple disabilities (severe cases); to create a center for 120 youth and adults with intellectual and multiple disabilities from Bucharest and Ilfov county; develop methods and instruments adapted to the needs of the project's target group. We needed this project because there is no such one adapted to the needs of young and adults with these problems: multiple and intellectual disabilities. Usually these people are stuck into public institutions and the services are focused on primary basic needs. The project will also research on the methodologies used for different other specific disabilities in order to create a manual of work specific for the project's target group: youth and adults with intellectual and multiple disabilities.
Summary of project results
Since 1992, the Swedish Organization for Individual Relief provides services and fights for the rights of children and young people with intellectual and associated disabilities. After graduation from special schools for children with disabilities, many young people with severe disabilities and reduced possibilities of development remain in state’s or family’s care, where they are provided only basic services without specialized interventions to ensure a quality life. In this context, the promoter decided to develop and cover a vacuum of specialized services for the niche target group - youth and adults with intellectual and associated disabilities. A complex center was created, providing specialized services centred on individual needs to 127 children and youth with intellectual and associated disabilities. They have benefited from more than 30 types of specialized activities/workshops (psychological, psychiatric and social evaluation and counselling; development of language; sensorial stimulation; kinetotherapy; combined art stimulation; educational development; occupational therapy; integration in community; combined art therapy; developing written/reading skills and counting/calculation; therapeutic storytelling; recycled art; painting/drawing; little decorations; quilling; cooking etc.). A multidisciplinary team was involved in service provision: psychologist, social worker, psychiatrist, physical therapist, speech therapist, occupational therapist and instructor, educational psychologist, and also 22 volunteers were directly involved in supporting the activities of the center. Contests and open doors activities were organised to change the negative public perception of children and youth with disabilities. A working group was established (specialists from several NGOs and institutions, family members of disabled young people involved in related activities) and drafted a manual describing the specialized service delivery model for children and youth with intellectual and associated disabilities. It includes theoretical and practical information used by professionals in the disability field so as to assist organizations, institutions and families interested in improving the quality of life of people with disabilities.
Summary of bilateral results