Here are some of the key ideas about CBR and primary education.
Use your mouse or keyboard to expand each of the headings below.
Whole community approach
It is the responsibility of the whole community to promote and support inclusion, and local primary schools provide a key opportunity and environment in which to demonstrate this. CBR needs to work in collaboration with schools, families, people with disabilities, and community leaders.
Some examples of how different people and groups can be involved include:
Parents know their own child best and can provide very helpful information to teachers
Teachers can help parents support learning at home
The district education office promotes and supports inclusion of all towards sustainability
The health and social sectors enhance the possibility of inclusion of all through their involvement and communication with other stakeholders
In addition, itinerant or travelling teachers can create linkages, share specific skills such as teaching Braille and travel to schools to provide advice, resources and support for students with disabilities, their teachers and their parents
Learn about how a young boy with cerebral palsy and his mother became accepted and supported by the community through a whole-community approach
CBR in Action
Yuri lives with his mother and sisters in the Andes Mountains, Peru. Yuri has cerebral palsy and is unable to walk. He wanted to go to primary school like his sisters, but he faced a number of barriers:
There was no accessible path from his house to the main road
There was no accessible transport
The teachers at the local primary school did not have any disability awareness or training
CBR personnel focused on empowering Yuri’s mother, who then mobilized the community to build a path from her house to the road. CBR also provided a hand tricycle for Yuri and prepared the teachers with disability awareness and training. Yuri began attending the primary school, and was received with a welcome party from the other students.
Whole-school approach
A whole-school approach ensures that all those involved in or with a connection to a school will work together to raise awareness about disability, identify and remove barriers to facilitate the inclusion of disabled children in the local school. The people who may be involved include head teachers, class teachers, administrators, caretakers, parents and children with and without disabilities
Learn about how a community in Cape Verde made their school accessible.
CBR in Action
“Good Practices in Inclusive Education of Children with Disabilities in Cape Verde” was a study undertaken by Handicap International. It was carried out on the Islands of Santiago, São Vicente, Fogo and Brava and focuses on pre-school, primary and secondary schools.
This study demonstrates that it is possible, with the existing resources, to conduct good practices in Inclusive Education in Cape Verde, which could be replicated in other educational settings.
There is still much to be done, but together we have a responsibility to create the conditions so that every child has access to education.
Usage attributions will go here once we hear from Priscille about its details
Social inclusion
Handicap International
Many people and programmes may focus only on academic learning. It is just as important for children to learn how to relate and live together with others and be open, helpful and respectful of others.
Children who experience difficulty in learning academic skills may still benefit from being included socially in the local school environment. This also prepares all children to become members of an inclusive society.
Responding to diversity
All children are different and learn in different ways. Schools can respond to this diversity by ensuring that curricula, teaching methods and environments are flexible and accommodating to all. A flexible system requires making adjustments for everyone, not just one particular group. A school that is good for children with disabilities will be one that is good for all children.
Responding to diversity also means recognizing that children with disabilities are very different from each other, even if they have similar impairments. For example, people with visual impairment may access the curriculum in different ways: one person may find tape recordings useful; another may find Braille more helpful; while still another may make use of apps on a smart phone. Some children with a hearing impairment may learn well through lip-reading, whilst others may use sign language as their cultural language and need others who know and use it for teaching support.
Welcoming and accessible environment
Research suggests that accessibility reduces the cost of inclusion overall.
The school environment needs to be physically accessible for all children, with specific attention given to ensuring that toilets are accessible for children with disabilities. Schools can also pay attention to their appearance and atmosphere to ensure that the environment is welcoming for all. A clean school with appropriate sanitation and clean water facilities, colourful displays on the walls, and positive attitudes and behaviour from children, teachers and other staff all contribute to a welcoming environment.
Learner-centred approach
WHO/Akash
The quality of what happens in schools is as important as access. A learner-centred or child-centred approach means that all processes and structures in a school are centred on supporting each child to learn and participate.
Learner-centred also means “age-appropriate”. Sometimes a child with a disability may not be identified early enough to begin basic education at the same time as his/her peers. A child with intellectual impairment may be older but have a relatively young mental age. Each situation may differ; in some circumstances, it may be best to support the child with the additional help or supplementary learning required to allow him or her to be with similar-age peers, while in other situations, it may best for the child to join a class with younger classmates. In all circumstances, it is important to respect the child’s actual age and work with teachers, parents and the community to support his or her best interests.
Resources and specialist support
The two important principles on the use of resources and support are:
Use of local resources: Most resources and support needed to help children learn are not ”special”. Local resources (material, financial or human) should be used.
Provision of access to specialist support: For some children with disabilities, specialist input is required to facilitate their inclusion. Specialist skills, support or equipment may be needed for learning Braille, or for learning to use augmentative and alternative forms of communication to speech. Some of these may include signboards, charts, gestures, electronic devices, pictures, apps on smart phones or tablets
Welcome to INCLUDE! This short tour will introduce you to the many resources available to you in our
learning community.
CONTINUE
This is the Module library page. It is the first thing you will see after you register and log into INCLUDE.
From here, you can choose to view nine different learning modules, each of which examines a different aspect of Community-Based Rehabilitation.
BACK
CONTINUE
Each time you make a selection from the Module library, you will enter a learning module (in this case the Health module) that you can interact with in a number of ways.
BACK
CONTINUE
You will have a number of opportunities to reflect on your thoughts, feelings and experiences related to CBR, as well as on what you have learned so far. If you want, you can choose to share your reflections with other members of the INCLUDE community.
BACK
CONTINUE
Note that when you are inside a learning module, you use the Continue and Back buttons at the bottom of the screen to move ahead to the next page, or go back to the previous page.
BACK
CONTINUE
You can also choose to jump directly to a different part of the current module by making a selection from the menu on the left side of the screen.
BACK
CONTINUE
In each learning module, you will also have the opportunity to respond to poll questions and learn what others in the INCLUDE community are thinking about CBR.
BACK
CONTINUE
You can also review numerous real-life examples of how others are successfully implementing CBR around the world.
BACK
CONTINUE
And you can create an action plan to help you:
•Better understand the needs of your programme, and
•Take specific, concrete steps to address them
As with reflections, if you want, you can also choose to share your action plan with other members of the community.
BACK
CONTINUE
Additional resources are available any time you want to access them, frrom the menu at the top of every screen.
From the Reflect option on this menu, you can:
•Review all of the reflections you have entered so far, or
•View the reflections other members of the INCLUDE community have entered and chosen to share
BACK
CONTINUE
Under Action Plan, you can:
•Work on your own action plan, or
•View action plans that other members of the community have created and chosen to share
BACK
CONTINUE
You can also view the full library of real-life examples of CBR in action from this menu.
If you want to locate the examples that are most relevant to your work, you can filter these examples by subject and region, as well as by the gender and age(s) of the population being served.
BACK
CONTINUE
In the Community section you can:
•Participate in conversations (discussions) with other members of the INCLUDE community
•View the results of every poll question included in the course
BACK
CONTINUE
Finally, you can view a set of additional resources related to CBR in the Resource library.
BACK
CONTINUE
Finally, you can view a set of additional resources related to CBR in the Resource library.
