"<< 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 >>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.