Practices Archives | COFACE Families Europe

Skills4Parents – Learning Guide for Parents

Admin - Elizabeth — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 19:48:15 +0000

Empowering families through the development of
positive parenting skills

Learning Guide for Parents

The Learning Guide

Funded by the Erasmus+ programme, developed through the expertise of 6 organisations and founded on values of human rights, non-discrimination, social inclusion, gender equality, intergenerational solidarity and empowerment of all families, the Skills4Parents Learning Guide for Parents provides plenty of material for self-learning of parents in five areas: Communication, Empowerment, Mediation, Problem solving and Digital. The guide adopts a self-learning approach, allowing all learning parents to choose the content that they need to tackle the parenting challenges they are encountering at their own pace. Now it is up to you to make your own programme and take the best that Skills4Parents can offer you! We wish you a pleasant learning journey through our guide.

The guide is available in English and French.

_____________

Background

The five learning packages present in the Learning Guide have been selected following a careful selection process. First, the six organisations have built on their experience working with parents and professionals, and on a thorough literature review to preselect a set of skills. This list was then put through a “reality test” as all partners organised focus group sessions to test the skill sets in five countries. This resulted in the creation of a cross-European focus group with different profiles of parents and educators. The learning parents participating in the focus groups came from various backgrounds and each of them face different challenges in their everyday lives. From divorced and single parents, migrant parents, special needs parents with hearing or visual impairments to parents from big cities, suburban areas to rural. The groups were gender-balanced and were representing diverse family forms and geographical origins. For more information about the selection of the learning packages, you can check our report.

The post Skills4Parents – Learning Guide for Parents appeared first on COFACE Families Europe.

New report shedding light on the S.H.I.F.T. towards meaningful inclusion in Europe

PMI_admin — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 07:35:22 +0000

Media release for International Day of Persons with Disabilities
Brussels, 3rd December 2021

On this International day of persons with disabilities, the COFACE Disability platform for the rights of persons with disabilities and their families presents its new report shedding light on existing practices across Europe to boost the shift towards fully inclusive societies. This snapshot of 45 practices, matching the content of the S.H.I.F.T. guide, highlights the transition towards meaningful inclusion as a whole-family, whole-society process and invites everyone to join the #BeTheSHIFT movement.

_______

For this International day of persons with disabilities, COFACE’s Disability Platform has selected 45 initiatives reflecting the S.H.I.F.T. principles, reflected by the words: Support, Human rights, Independence, Families, societal Transition. These practices were selected to match the 45 actions of the S.H.I.F.T. guide for inclusion of persons with disabilities and their families. Implemented in 20+ European countries by a wide range of practitioners, some of the practices already have a global reach, and all of them have the potential to inspire every one, everywhere to join the movement and #BeTheSHIFT.

After the adoption of the S.H.I.F.T. guide by COFACE Families Europe in 2019, the COFACE Disability platform decided to organise a reality-check by launching a public consultation to collect examples of S.H.I.F.T. actions currently underway in different countries. Over the last months, we have collected and analysed practices, comparing them with the actions and tools in the S.H.I.F.T. guide. We are delighted to present the result of this work.

The report contains 45 individual factsheets presenting a snapshot description of the practice as well as an explanation of how the practice contributes to building inclusive societies. All factsheets have been thought to reflect the political and societal relevance of the S.H.I.F.T. movement. For the policy side, we have matched all the practices with the most relevant articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and with the relevant areas of action put forward by the European Commission in the European Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Finally, for each practice, we included a short tip section, addressed to everyone wanting to further explore the content of the S.H.I.F.T. action and #BeTheSHIFT.

COFACE Disability President, Chantal Bruno: “As witnessed by the COFACE Disability Platform for the rights of persons with disabilities and their families, too many forms of discrimination persist here and there, including against people with disabilities or people with an illnesse, older persons, their families and their carers. Nonetheless, at the same time, movements towards inclusion are emerging. There are places adapting to the differences of all people, specific answers are brought to those who need them. Places exist where rights and freedoms are conjugated in the present, for all. It is important to make them known; they can be a source of inspiration.”

The natural conclusion after going through this collection of practices is that the S.H.I.F.T. is happening all over Europe. These 45 factsheets are 45 additional arguments to strengthen COFACE’s work to achieve the meaningful inclusion of persons with disabilities and their families, grounding our advocacy in concrete practices. They are the real-life examples showing that the actions we present in our S.H.I.F.T guide are not wishful thinking but are implementable, and this is only the beginning.

COFACE Families Europe President, Annemie Drieskens: “What we found exceeded our expectations! We have been inspired by a wide range of initiatives by a colourful mix of practitioners who all should be applauded for their efforts to promote inclusion. Our report shines a light on the shift that is happening and paves the way towards meaningful inclusion. We hope to encourage and inspire many people to join COFACE’s work and #BetheShift.”

Easy to read version

We all have the same rights.

People with disabilities and their families have the same rights as other people.

People with disabilities and their families must live with others.

This is not done everywhere.

But there are places where people with disabilities live with others.

S.H.I.F.T. shows examples.

S.H.I.F.T. is like an easy-to-read-and-understand song to say the important words:

Support: means to help someone who needs help.

Human Rights: means that all people are free and equal throughout their lives.

Independence: means that the person does things alone. And also when they decide alone.

Families: means that the families of people with disabilities may have needs, questions.

Transition: means when life or society changes.

A global network centralising information on available assistive technology products.
Accessible technology with built‑in features that work the way you do.
Boosting representation of persons with disabilities in advertising.
Creating inclusive and diverse toys which represent children with disabilities.

Training manuals on sexual and reproductive health and rights for young people with learning disabilities. Europe
European Union Strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities 2021-2030.

Download the S.H.I.F.T. REPORT

(Click to download)

Supporting documents:

For more information, please contact Bettina Guigui, Communication Officer bguigui@coface-eu.org.

Note to editor

COFACE Families Europe is a European network of civil society associations representing the interests of families (all types, without discrimination).
COFACE’s areas of work include social/family policy, education, disability, gender equality, migration, consumer issues, and also protection of children online, privacy, data protection, and reflections on technological developments and how they may impact families.

The post New report shedding light on the S.H.I.F.T. towards meaningful inclusion in Europe appeared first on COFACE Families Europe.

Digital Families Map: How to harness the full potential of technology

PMI_admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 02:22:05 +0000

The growing digitalisation of our societies and the rapid advances in digital technologies affects every family and lacking the skills or the means (including financial means) to positively engage with and access digital technologies can lead to social exclusion, discrimination from access to certain services, and being exposed to various risks (privacy, security, etc).

The onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic has plunged all of us, families, children, workers, consumers, into the digital age with imposed and recommended lockdowns meaning that digital tools are slowly but surely becoming the norm for schooling, working, socialising, gaming, staying connected with family members. This makes digital citizenship and critical thinking ever more urgent.

Our Digital Families “Map” provides a European snapshot of innovative practices from civil society organisations which represent and/or support families in Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Spain, and Finland. These innovative practices cover many topics such as boosting digital skills, protecting children online, fostering digital inclusion of the most vulnerable (poor families, women, people with disability…), gaming advice, providing digital services to families via online platforms, dealing with certain risks such as cyberbullying, using ICT to boost independent living, and much more.

With this publication COFACE wants to inform and to stimulate commitments in the field of digitalisation, we want to inspire and encourage our civil society organisations and a broad network of partners and citizens to engage further in improving and shaping the digital world. This Digital Families Map draws out the great work of COFACE members in tackling the different facets of digitalisation as expressed in the 13 digitalisation principles of COFACE Families Europe.

The practices also show the fundamental interplay and interconnectedness between the “offline” and “online” worlds, which cannot be artificially separated. Although the practices focus on initiatives linked specifically to the “digital”, empowerment of people can permeate from digital to analog and vice versa. COFACE-Families Europe, has been involved for more than 60 years in building a strong social, family friendly Europe, and at a time of significant digital transformations, we will continue mainstreaming new digital realities to ensure policies (economic, family, education, health, employment, and more) are fit for 21st century challenges.

The post Digital Families Map: How to harness the full potential of technology appeared first on COFACE Families Europe.

Compendium on Financial Inclusion

PMI_admin — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 02:21:26 +0000

COFACE has always considered financial inclusion as one of its priorities, especially since access to some financial services like a basic bank account is a pre-condition for social inclusion.

The initiatives included in the “COFACE Compendium on Financial Inclusion” deal with the financial situation of families such as work on family budgets and the importance of saving, solidarity loans, social loans (micro-credit), information to families about financial/budgetary issues, help/advice for families on financial matters, prevention of overindebtedness, debt mediation/debt relief, lobbying/advocacy campaigns for better national regulation on financial services/financial inclusion etc.

We hope this publication will help pushing for policy measures that promote more responsible lending and borrowing, prevent overindebtedness and promote financial inclusion and access to quality/fair financial services.

Download: EN FR ES

The post Compendium on Financial Inclusion appeared first on COFACE Families Europe.