EQUAL TREATMENT: Facilitator pathway, online course for professional supporters

The project

Equal Treatment is an ERASMUS+ funded project with the aim to improve the access of people with intellectual disabilities to secondary and tertiary health care through: inclusive European policies in healthcare services; training of healthcare staff on interacting with patients with intellectual disabilities; stronger collaboration between healthcare staff and professional supporters.

Equal Treatment : Facilitator pathway, online course for professional supporters!

Supporting Persons with Intellectual Disabilities and promoting their rights in the context of secondary and tertiary Healthcare services.  

This online course consists of educational materials such as books, slide presentations, webpages, and scientific articles in a suggested sequence.

Each section begins with an introduction outlining the educational objectives to be achieved..

Books provide in-depth knowledge, while PowerPoint presentations summarize key points, and webpages or URL links offer additional relevant information.

Scientific articles are recommended for further reading, especially their abstract, introduction, and conclusion sections.

At the end of each module, a multiple-choice self-test allows learners to assess their understanding, with the option to review materials if answers are incorrect.

The course is available in English, Catalan, Greek, Finnish, Lithuanian and Spanish.

Link to the courses: https://projects.tuni.fi/eq/onlinecourses/

Educational objectives 

The person will gain improved knowledge and understanding of: 

  • Affected areas of life for persons with intellectual disabilities.    
  • The role of the Professional Supporters in supporting persons’ with Intellectual Disabilities special needs.   
  • Identification of the key barriers to communication for persons with intellectual disabilities and how to identify their communication needs. Applying good practices of communication and tools like Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and Easy-to Read language. 
  • Persons’ with Intellectual Disabilities comorbidity with Sensory Processing Disfunction.  
  • How to cope with anxiety by persons with Intellectual Disabilities.  
  • Potential attribution of challenging behaviors and ways to cope with these behaviors and their underlying causes. 
  • Rights of people with intellectual disabilities. United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD). EU Legislation Framework and National Laws. 
  • Barriers that may emerge when a person with Intellectual Disabilities wants to have access to secondary or tertiary healthcare services. In what ways can a professional supporter help a person with Intellectual Disabilities to overcome these barriers? 
  • Reasons that persons with Intellectual Disabilities may not receive proper quality of healthcare. 
  • Good practices can enable healthcare professionals to provide quality healthcare to persons with Intellectual Disabilities. Improving Heath Literacy. 
  • Ways that enable healthcare services to accommodate persons’ with intellectual disabilities needs.  
  • Ways a professional supporter can help them receive free/affordable healthcare. 
  • Ways that persons with Intellectual Disabilities may experience violations of their dignity and autonomy in the healthcare context. What rights that are most at risk of being violated in the field of health care? In what ways can a professional supporter can prevent these violations?  
  • Advocating efficiently for the Rights of persons with Intellectual Disabilities: Tools and strategies. 
  • Improving persons’ with intellectual disabilities awareness regarding their rights in health care settings.  
  • Definition and stages of Supported Decision Making and Informed Consent. Ways to involve persons with Intellectual Disabilities. 
Topics 
  1. Persons’ with Intellectual Disabilities Support Needs. 
  2. Communicating with Persons with Intellectual Disabilities: Challenges and ways to address them. Easy-To-Read Language and Augmentative and Alternative Communication strategies. 
  3. Ways to address behavioural Issues and their relation to sensory processing dysfunction and anxiety. 
  4. Legislation Framework of persons’ with Intellectual Disabilities Rights. 
  5. Accessibility of persons with Intellectual Disabilities to secondary or tertiary healthcare services: Barriers and facilitators. 
  6. Quality of healthcare – Accommodation of Disabilities. 
  7. Free and/or affordable healthcare for persons with Intellectual Disabilities. 
  8. Good practices, ways and reasonable Adjustments in the healthcare context to establish efficient treatment for persons with Intellectual Disabilities. The role of the professional supporter. 
  9. Treating persons with Intellectual Disabilities ethically while respecting their dignity and autonomy, practicing free and informed consent. Supported Decision Making. 

Evaluation and certification

Towards the completion of this course there is a Multiple Choice Self Test, to test the learner’s acquired knowledge on the topics elaborated. In the case of answering wrong, the learner is advised to run through the material to find the correct answer. If you are attending the course as a guest, you can not see the test. Only by creating an account to DigiCampus and attending to the course as signed student you can do the test and receive a certification of completing the course.

A feedback section at the end of each module allows learners to share suggestions for improving the course. Learner feedback is crucial for enhancing the quality of educational materials.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Equal Treatment Project Partners. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.