Category Archives: Forum

World AntiBullying Forum Stockholm

Category:Forum

The team gave a workshop at the World Antibullying Forum in Stockholm, Novemeber 3rd 2021.

Research by Jenaro, Flores, Vega, Cruz, Pérez and Torres (2018) investigating cyberbullying among adults with intellectual disabilities, found that 15.2% of the participants have been cyberbullied. Zweers-Schrooten, Scholte, and Didden (2017) revealed that students with disabilities and/or autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are particularly vulnerable to bullying compared to their neurotypical peers.

The Erasmus + Disabuse programme was designed for adults (15 years+) with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities to learn how to recognise and cope with all forms of bullying. It provides an online course with six separate lessons, translated from English, into Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. All materials are available online via the website www.DisAbuse.eu.
The online course consists of training materials for an instructor, with each lesson being supplemented by the use of multimedia games/audio and video clips and the optional use of Lego Serious Play^TM, to explore all of the areas that affect someone who is experiencing disablist bullying.

The six lessons developed are: 1. What is bullying & is not?  2. Dealing with Cyberbullying, 3. Understanding Bystanders, Bullies and Victims, 4. What are empathy and respect? 5. What to do about bullying? 6. Keeping Strong against Bullying.

Expectations
The DisAbuse project was evaluated positively in all four countries, by both the participants and their key workers/families. These resources mean that any person working with people with SEN/D can use these resources to educate them about bullying and cyberbullying, while individuals with SEN/D can learn about being a bystander and how to protect themselves. It also informs the key workers/families to recognise when bullying situations arise and what steps can be taken to resolve the situation. This project focuses on young adults, mainly in relation to support services. However children with SEN/D both in support services and main stream school can also benefit from this program.

CHAT forum

Category:Forum

Let’s Go Skills will join ​CHAT’s (Community Hub for Assistive Technology) next meeting Tuesday April 7th. The call will offer everyone involved in Assistive Technology in Ireland a chance to come together and discuss the following three opening questions: 

1. What is the greatest unmet need that you are coming across/experiencing regarding access to technology and assistive technology for people with disabilities?

2. How can we work together to meet some of those needs? To share innovations and solutions?

3. What innovations and opportunities have you developed or identified that you can share? 

The intention is to gather issues from the ground and create an open self-organising space to work on some of these issues, avoid duplication of effort and support shared learning. We want to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind or further disadvantaged during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Prof Mac MacLachlan, National Clinical Lead for Disability Services, HSE, and Co-Director of the ALL Institute, Maynooth University has agreed to say a few words at the opening of the meeting.