Citizenship education for service users
Citizenship education for service users
| Organisation | The Marie Homes – the Inge & Sofie Marie Home in Ringsted, Denmark |
| Target Group | Service users living at the Inge and Sofie Marie Home. The group is primarily young adults (18 – 50 years of age) with developmental disabilities and autism, requiring different levels of 24 hours support |
| Description | The Danish National Board of Social Services has developed a guide for education in civil rights and citizenship for adults with developmental disabilities. We have, as one of the very first social service providers in Denmark, developed and operationalised a tailor-made edition for the first 18 service users. The main purpose is empowering the participants by creating awareness and obtaining knowledge of self-determination, personal rights, common rights, and democracy and develop personal skills in making choices and successful communication. The course is a 4 weeks full-time process. The subjects are all related to 4 levels of daily living - individually, group wise, community wise and national politics and democratic structures. Subjects are e.g. self-determination, civil rights, democracy, participation, national laws, voting for parliament, etc. Furthermore, special site visits were arranged to the local police station, the personal ServiceDesk of the municipality, the local city council and the mayor, the Danish parliament, and Members of Parliament. The learning process has been carefully planned related to the participants’ individual style and capacity for learning, as well as for the group in common. Different kinds of methods are involved; plenary and group talks and debates, games and plays, role plays, creating posters, etc.The education has been completed with a very high level of enthusiasm, lively debates, reflections, and inquisitiveness among the participants – with a great deal of transfer to their service providers and jobs. A new consciousness of rights and opportunities for choice making is developing in their daily living. The teachers of the education are pedagogical social workers at the Inge & Sofie Marie Home. Their experiences, learned from the process, has led to new insights into especially the capability and resources of the participants – as well as their desire for learning. These experiences will be internalised in the future daily practices of the organisation. The success of the education has resulted in planning at least to new learning processes – adapted to participants whose resources are better met in shorter versions. With this initiative, the Inge & Sofie Marie Home has contributed directly to quality of life as well as to professional development and continuous improvements, benefitting future service users and employees. The experiences will be shared with other providers. |
| Partners Staff and Resources Duration Budget |
Workplaces of service users, site visits 7 staff members for 5 weeks (about 1,200 hours) 20 days 4,000 euros - plus salary and temps. |
| Contact /more information | Name: Hans Meier Andersen, Karin Aasbjerg, Anne-Mette Hansen Email address: hma@mariehjem.dk / kma@mariehjem.dk |