The Challenge

“Assure Quality of Vocational Education and Training of students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)”

In Europe, recent estimates place the number of children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) at 15 million (EC 2012), and about 5% of aged ≤18 population affected by Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - ADHD (DSM-5®,2015). A global survey has indicated that 50-60% of children and adolescents with ADHD will continue to have ADHD as adults (Childhood predictors of adult ADHD, Lara Carmen, 2009.

The project “Quality Assurance in VET for learners with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” identified the following problems:

• Limited access to early and accurate diagnosis of ADHD (in schools, at workplace)
• Generally these disorders are not addressed with a lifelong learning approach: from kindergarten to Vocational Education and Training (VET) and adult education
• Limited number of specialized staff for the integration into the education process
• Lack of State Education Standards (SES) for children with SEN in all EU countries, although new educational standards are in a process of development.
• Reduced awareness about 'what ADHD is' and about existing opportunities for supporting ADHD learners and their families. VET providers, experts and professionals should be more active in presenting these disorders and disseminating information about assistance opportunities in the different countries.

The main consequence of these problems is that learners with ADHD frequently leave school with few qualifications and are much more likely to become unemployed or economically inactive.

Project aim and objectives

“Develop a European Quality Assurance Framework for VET and a concrete Toolkit for supporting VET providers in improving their VET offers ; assure that ADHD learners will enjoy quality training to become more employable.”

Partners

The project brings together 8 partners from 5 European countries, forming a transnational cooperation partnership with a balanced regional geographical representation of the Erasmus+ area and with qualitative representation for Bulgaria. In addition, the Partnership is composed of organizations having complementary competences: Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), teacher associations, research centres, technological non-profit organizations and VET providers training ADHD learners.

Methodology and key outputs

Since the very beginning of the project partners defined the concrete methodological strategies and approaches for disseminating good practices of EQAVET implementation in VET addressed to ADHD learners. Partners developed the contents of the Framework: Quality Assurance indicators, online assessment tool and practical guidelines for its implementation. Also they defined a Toolkit for VET providers training ADHD learners including ready to use tools and instruments for enhancing the quality of VET programmes addressed to ADHD learners.

Funding

The project is funded by the ERASMUS+ PROGRAMME - KA2 - Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices - Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training, AGREEMENT NUMBER – 2016-1-BG01-KA202-023714

Impact

 The project managed to:

• put Quality Assurance and inclusive approach on the agenda of providers
• give to VET providers a concrete tool for supporting the implementation and improvement of Quality Management Systems within their organizations, with a particular focus on ADHD learners. (Tools4ADHD.eu)
• support a more systemic approach to quality within VET
• create the sense of ownership in relation to the project outputs among the stakeholders. This will lead to enhancing the exploitation of project outputs in the future.

 All the results are already freely accessible to all.
 Visit Tools4ADHD.eu to get:

• A compendium of best practices collected from 6 EU countries
• An Online Self-Assessment Tool, to help VET providers check how inclusive they are towards students with ADHD.(link)

 The tool offers spider graphs for the results' analysis and Customized feedback based on your results.

• A Glossary regarding ADHD and inclusive education in 6 languages (link)
• Quality principles and indicators for VET providers for ADHD learners (link)

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Project ID

• Partners: Sofia University (Bulgaria), Effebi Association (Italy), UNINETTUNO (Italy), Folkuniversitetet (Sweden), NART- National Association of Resource Teachers (Bulgaria), FTF- FORO Tecnico de Formacion (Spain), SCIFY- Science for You (Greece), DIMITRA- Dimitra Education & Consulting S.A (Greece)
• Duration: 09/2016-08/2018
• Funding: The project is funded by the ERASMUS+ PROGRAMME - KA2 - Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices - Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training, AGREEMENT NUMBER – 2016-1-BG01-KA202-023714