"<< Background >>Inclusion of students with disabilities (SwD) in mainstream education is regarded as a top priority in the national legislations of the partner countries, all of which signatories of international documents promoting inclusion (the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UNESCO Salamanca Statement). The documents require the States Parties to ensure that children with disabilities are not excluded from free and compulsory primary education. However, significant differences are detected between the legal provisions and the circumstances. Also, inclusion rates differ not only among countries, but also among regions/states: in AT they range from 50 to 95%, in DE from 26 to 83%, in TR 68% inclusion nationally. There are no official data for MK, except that 0.4% of the children enrolled in regular primary schools in 19/20 had some type of disability. In 2001, the WHO published the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), focusing on a functional understanding of health. ICF offers an ability-based, interacting and holistic view of SwD in diverse settings. As a non-stigmatising meta-language, it increases participation, goal-oriented planning for teachers, full participation of the “team around the family"", and transparency of interventions.National education systems are not always fully prepared for mainstream inclusion, so GAPS between the future strategy and the status quo are visible. In its Education Strategy 2018-2025, the government of North Macedonia sets increasing and improving inclusion in education as a priority, but also recognizes a lack of capacity: lack of mechanisms; discriminatory attitudes among parents, teachers, and peers; educators’ lack of competences; scarcity of didactic materials, resources and aids; insufficient no. of related professionals (spec. educators, psychologists, assistants). Teachers report lack of concrete methodologies concerning team-work and didactic processes for ALL children. Necessary exchange processes with other relevant sectors (health/social) are challenging due to different professional description systems.The participating organisations have sufficient knowledge, skills, and experience in inclusion, ICF, and education of students with disabilities, so they feel the obligation and the need to contribute to fostering inclusion and increasing quality of education for all children. The project goal is to increase the quality of education by increased participation goal-orientation and enhances inclusion and equity; it creates synergies between different sectors related to education of SwD by introducing ICF and providing team teaching methodsThe project addresses the NEEDS to:- Address the developmental situation of SwD in a common language for all;- Cooperate in relevant teams at school (with other teachers in the team and other professionals in the “team around the family”);- Apply diverse teaching methods to provide inclusive education<< Objectives >>The partners in the project ""Inclusion-Friendly Classroom: The ICF as a Problem Solving Tool for the Team around the Child in Educational Settings"" have set the GOAL to increase the quality of education by increased participation goal-orientation and enhance inclusion and equity. The consortium creates synergies between different sectors related to education of students/pupils with disabilities (SwD) by introducing ICF and providing team teaching methods. The OBJECTIVES towards achieving the goal of the project are:1. To enhance the skills of educators towards a COMMON ability-based and participation-focused language by using ICF;2. To increase (participation) goal orientation and inclusiveness in the classroom by means of an ICF evaluation tool; 3. To increase team work in the “team around the family”4. To promote inclusion by facilitating teaching processes based on reflective self-learning of teachers.<< Implementation >>Sharing expertise and validated experience on team teaching, the Partners jointly design the results (see: www.icf-school.eu or Pretis, 2020), pilot them, and share results through multiplier events (linked to needs). The usability of the outcomes is validated by external steering groups. Based on strategic partnerships (support letters by the Macedonian Ministry of Education and Science and the Board of Education Styria - Austria , teacher network - 3 model regions of inclusion in AT, Corum RAM Guidance and Research Centre of the MoE in TR) tools are prepared to be mainstreamed for ALL schools.<< Results >>Addressing the needs of the target groups - educational staff in primary and preschool institutions (teachers, special teachers, teaching assistants, rehabilitators, therapists), but also parents, administration, policy makers and SwD, the project is expected to result in:- Increased communication and exchange concerning children with disabilities, and increased efficiency of teaching processes by using a common language in school and participation goal orientation.- Increased inclusive teaching competences and increased (participation-)goal orientation as a key factor of meaningful (school and preschool) support, achieved by use of the provided methodological tools and guidance.Three project products (outcomes) have been plan as tools towards achieving the project goal and objectives:Project result 1: “ICF Inclusion Checklist” – a tool for educators, including parents, to evaluate inclusive acting in the classroom and functionally describe the student’s health situation and his/her education support needs;Project result 2: “Participation Goal Incubator” - a guide which provides concrete self-guided teacher training on how to create ICF-based meaningful participation goals based on functional descriptions with and for students with disabilities; and Project result 3: “Teachers-Teamwork-Toolkit” – a toolkit providing team-teaching methodologies to help teachers cooperate and coordinate classroom activities in the “team around the family”.The positive impact of the project results includes:1) Participation goal orientation in school is increased based on the number of users. 2) Teachers act more inclusively in the classroom: using the ICF tools increase inclusive thinking of teachers and increase outcome orientation by using the WHO classifiers. 3) Team-teaching processes are evidence-oriented and improve team coordination/cooperation. Teachers benefit from concrete didactic tools and didactic support methods for ALL children.4) Using the ICF-based goal setting tools the individual match between goals and necessary teachings strategies for ALL students in classrooms therefore will be increased. On classroom level this will be measured by selected focus groups with SwD or parents."

"<< Objectives >>The “Int.. Classification of Functionning, Disability and Health“ (ICF) enabled a bio-psycho-social, ability based and non-stigmatizing approach, focusing on „participation“. ICF is included in regulations of additional support needs in most EU27; implementation in schools is still pending. Only assessing bodies (SPF-Gutachter, DMs) learnt about ICF in HLGs (Styria and NÖ) and pilot regions. For Inclusive and mainstream teachers (planning and performing support) a knowledge/skill gap is bridged<< Implementation >>1 After the tool-development pilots are performed in AT (pre-/inservice teacher training and Praxisschulen), in MK (School administration) and TR. 2 Together with BDs (Stmk, NÖ, W) and PHs, 5 ICF-assessment centers in MK, expert networks in TR outcomes are dissminated.3 Mainstreaming: 15-20% of inclusive teachers in AT are reached, in NÖ existing electronic Förderplan is amended. MK School Administration ensures mainstream in the Central region. RAM (TR) reaches 4000 teachers within trainings.<< Results >>1) ICF-support-plan: (anonymous) online tool for inclusive and mainstream teachers to plan and perform additional educational support (based on ICF-categories and participation goals). This ""plan"" is linked to1a: training modules previous Erasmus+ projects in AT, DE, MK, UNICEF (BG, TR)1b: ICF Best practice-expert-plans from previous projects1c: FAQ to provide target specific answers for teachers1d: Link to indepth-tools from recent Erasmus+ (www.icfcy-meduse.eu, www.icf-school.eu, ""I am”)"

<< Objectives >>By introducing the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (WHO 2001) as a common or umbrella language into diverse sectors of support for Persons with Disability the quality of support and the participation of all involved professionals and beneficiaries is increased. Based on its umbrella-character over diverse sectors (medical, social, educational) ICF leads to a desigmatisation of PwD, as abilities rather than disabilities and coordinated goals are focused.<< Implementation >>Implementation focuses on: a) information of relevant stakeholders (mainly quality assurance managers) of service providers, b) providing a tool (concrete guide towards implementation of ICF - including sector specific aspects) and c) pilot guidance in order to start mainly top-down implementation strategies. By the provided tool institutions are enabled to define necessary frameworks (e.g. training needs for their staff) and project steps. Current legal frames support implementation of ICF.<< Results >>The main result consist of: a) information about ICF-implementation frames and requirement, b) sector specific aspects, c) the benefits of a common (international, transparent, destigmatizing and participation goal oriented) language, d) initiated implementation processes, and e) cooperation necessities between diverse sectors in the support of persons with disabilities. These results contribute to a more transparent, participative, efficient and coordinated delivery of services for PwD.

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), WHO 2001, represents a system to describe the abilities and the restrictions of a person with a health concern. As a part of the WHO classification family, the ICF contributes to an ability-focused approach; based on approximately 1400 codes, it depicts a holistic picture of early health and education processes of children with developmental difficulties. The ICF helps to increase the quality of ECEC-processes within the global strategies of “nurturing care”– bringing together health, nutrition, early learning, parental empathy, and safety. Other systems (ICD 10) focus on individual deficits (in MK still called “defects”) and tend to rely on a medical understanding of disability. Within the UN Convention on Persons with Disability, the ICF is widely recognized in Europe (see the DE “BTHG”, Law on Participation, 2017)” which anticipates the use of the ICF. Also, the Styrian Landesbehindertengesetz (Law on Persons with Disabilities) introduced ICF in 2004 to describe the support need for adult PwD. In North Macedonia, the ICF was officially translated (supported by UNICEF) and launched with the support of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy in September 2017. Moreover, the Macedonian disability commissions consider using the ICF as categor (izing system. First trainings (UNICEF supported ToT of family doctors in Skopje in June 2017) and joint learning with pediatricians within Erasmus+ ICFCY-MedUse (www.icfcy-meduse.eu) promotes the process of implementation. In Germany, the new law increased the need for professionals to learn about the ICF (www.teilhabe-verbessern.de) reached more than 500 kindergarten teachers and parallel trainings for pediatricians were organised. Yearly Conferences of ICF users in Germany reached approx. 1000 professionals from the field of inclusive kindergartens in Germany.Within the ongoing training processes (ICF-certification of professionals in kindergarten and in social pediatrics) 3 professional groups supporting the first 1000 days in life are unaddressed: 1) (home visiting) patronage nurses in North Macedonia providing health and rearing support to families with newborns, 2) early support systems and family midwifes in Germany, and e) and educational professionals in nurseries (mainly in Austria and Turkey).Even though in North Macedonia patronage nurses have been trained concerning family-oriented home visiting (UNICEF supported), the usage of ICF has not been addressed yet. A comparable lack of training refers to family midwifes or developmental specialists in Turkey.The ICF as a worldwide recognized meta-language provides this necessary common communication base between diverse sectors education (nursery), health, and other involved professionals and it increases the quality of the early support services as all the involved groups within a team (including the parents) use ONE terminology. This participation of all the involved professionals increases the commitment and participation within the support process for children with developmental difficulties.Recent Erasmus+ project ICYCY-MedUSE has already produced training materials which, however, did not focused on the first 1000 days and did not address the needs of early-days professionals and their communication with parents (in terms of quick guide).The goal of “Common language for the first 1000 days” therefore consists in increasing knowledge and skills for multidisciplinary professionals within the first 1000 days by:a) Adapting the existing ICF training materials towards professionals working with very young toddlers and their families. The sensitivity of professionals is increased by multiplication of knowledge.b) Increasing the quality of cooperation processes by introducing a common language and comply with ongoing social-political processes (see MK and DE).Outcomes:O1: Tailor-made ICF training modules in Macedonian, German, and Turkish for patronage nurses, early support services, and professionals in nurseries working with very small children based on existing materials. Specific issues of age, connection between health, education/parenting and social (see WHO concept of “Nurturing care) are addressed in this adaption, mainly focusing on a possible lack of diagnosis during these early stages of development.O2: Quick Guide to ICF for professionals (concerning selected important items) to ensure that all the relevant professionals are familiar with ICF and are able to use it in daily life and to increase understanding between professionals and parents in the support processes for small children with developmental problems.Consortium:Association for Promotion of Education, Culture and Sport “Education for All” (NGO in MK)Association of Nurses, Technicians, and Midwives (Professional Association in MK)Medical School Hamburg (Research Institute in DE)Dr. Pretis (SME in AT)Dr. Dudu Melek Obuncuoglu (SME in TR).