Project objective 1: Basic handout - brochure
The concept of further education of VEMAS, the procedure and the theoretical basics will be presented in a basic handout/brochure in paper form and as text file in a graphically descriptive and comprehensive way. The handout/brochure will initially be put together in German and later translated into French and English. There will also be a version in easy language. The training material to be developed, consisting of carefully documented case histories, a collection of methods for understanding diagnostics and concepts for the implementation of social inclusion, focuses on the topic of "behavioural problems" and is elaborated specifically for the group of people with intellectual disabilities. The idea is that this material can be adapted to other groups of people who show conspicuous behaviour (for example, children and adolescents with mental illnesses, patients with dementia). The brochure aims to present the approach taken here in a comprehensible way.
The central starting point of the project is to ask for the meaning behind a person's behaviour, with the vital guiding question: "Why does person XY behave the way he or she does?". Since people with intellectual disabilities often have limited verbal language, different, multi-perspective materials will be provided in order to explore this question. These include observation sheets, reflection and questionnaires as well as interview guides. Fundamentally, we first want to understand why people behave the way they do.
This also means asking in which situations the person behaves in this way and what the history, the biographical origin of this behaviour could be. In the second phase of the project, individualized and situation-related action alternatives are developed, tested and implemented with the respective person and his or her social environment. What goals and motivations are being pursued with the conspicuous behaviour? What needs are manifested in the behaviour? How can these needs be met differently? What possibilities are there for social inclusion? Which framework conditions must be created for this? Which barriers have to be identified and overcome? Which supporting possibilities does the social environment offer? Through the project, solution-oriented approaches and alternative possibilities for action are to be applied with the goal of social inclusion.
We expect that people with behavioural problems will be perceived as humans who act subjectively meaningful, who are being taken serious in their right of self-determination and social participation, and who are not being decided upon, but together with who new ways of communication and cooperation can be found. The concept of VEMAS, and also the brochure, is directed to different fields from medicine, psychology, pedagogy but also to people such as parents, siblings or friends.
