According to a recent (2013-2018) EU project (ASDEU) that conducted study in 18 European countries, the prevalence rate of autism is 1%, meaning 1 in every 100 person is autistic. In Hungary, the National Association conducted a research. The outcome showed similar prevalence rate, and also increasing numbers of the diagnosis. After the diagnosis the families with autistic children remain alone. Nor the health neither the social support system has any solution how to give appropriate help for the families after the autism diagnosis. As the society does not understand the autism condition, they became easily excluded from the society.All the partners who participated in the project have experience in supporting families with disabled family member on different level. All these experiences are showing the demanding need of support. This is leading to the conclusion that families with disabled member need support, they need to belong somewhere.In the PROPAR project, organisations from Hungary (Mars Foundation), Poland (JiM Foundation), Romania (KEY Association) and Serbia (Autizam Srbija) have worked together to exchange good practices in supporting families with disabled family member on different level. We have worked together for 2 years in order to learn from each other, find new ideas, practices and new impulses and implement new ways of support in every partner country. During our Online Closing Event, we have summarized our experience and shared with you all, hoping that you will benefit from our findings too.https://youtu.be/bxX091C0E0Q

"The prevalence of autism was 1:10,000 twenty years ago. Today, according to the newest data (Autism Speaks), it is 1:59. This information obligates the community to respond by taking into account several perspectives and meeting the needs of autistic children in school. Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental state that affects all spheres of personality and is reflected in the problems of communication, social interaction and the perceptions of the world around them. Social stories proved to be an extremely effective tool for improving all aspects of social communication and interaction with people with autism.Social stories are brief descriptions of events or activities that contain clear information about what can be expected of some situation and why. They provide people with autism with an idea of how others can react in practical situations and the frameworks of adequate behavior for themselves and others.Our school has years of experience working with children with autism spectrum. Applying different methods and ways of work, experts in defectology from our school have discovered that the key to working with autistic children is developing strategies for social communication and behavior modification. That is also a precondition for their successful integration into the system of full-time education. For this purpose, social stories are used.The biggest problem in developing and applying Social stories is the lack of training for teachers in regular schools and absence of Social stories in our language or any other language of our region. In order to form a unique tool base which will be available in three languages we have connected with leading institutions and eminent experts who have great experience working with children as well as in European projects. Therefore, the project aims to build, strengthen and create the skills of teachers working with children with autism spectrum. The specific goals are:• Make Practicum with social stories for teachers• Train teachers to use the Practicum with social stories• Train teachers to create individual social stories to overcome confusing and stressful situations in children with autismPracticum will enable teachers to facilitate children with autism learning and functioning in inclusive education and by directing parents to the appropriate use of social stories will make children adapt to a wider social community.I-OK includes 4 partners from 3 different countries:Primary school ""Anton Skala"" - Belgrade, Serbia - coordinator,Alliance of Association of Serbia for assistance to people with autism – Serbia, Center for Autism–Croatia, CSOP - BulgariaThe project will begin with research. Focus group surveys in participating countries will be used to determine the need for a specific topic that is an integral part of the Practicum. The results of this research will be crucial for the development of the next phase of the project.After analyzing the results of the focus group, the methodological practicum will be developed using the synthesis of the literature used as the starting point for defining the theoretical basis of Practicum. It will contain a description of what are the specifics of social interaction and communication in people with autism, what are the social stories, who they are intended for, what is benefit of them, the way they are applied, what types exist and how they are developed. At the same time partners will work according to given themes on the examination, search and design of appropriate materials for the preparation of the working version of the pilot project.PRACTICUM DESIGN - The goal is to provide Practicum ultimate look and structure.PILOT PROJECT – It will serve to assess the quality and applicability of the working version of the practicum. After receiving completed surveys we will analyze responses and make eventual correction of the practicum according to relevant suggestions.PRACTICUM DEVELOPMENT - Partner organizations will simultaneously work on specific content related to given topics:The Alliance develops first part of Practicum - methodology of making social stories that will serve as a teachers tutorialsCenter for Autism–Health PracticumCSOP- Daily routine Practicum""Anton Skala"" - School and BehaviorDISSEMINATION AND EVALUATION - All partners will participate in various activities to contribute realization of the project goals. They will join efforts in evaluation and dissemination of the project results.Final phase of the project will be used to develop a series of analyzing tools that will help implementation of Practicum and tools for sustainability and promotion of the project. The development of the best analyzing tools will be based on interviews with teachers who applied Practicum. Positive results achieved through this project will be distributed so it can refer to as many people as possible.In this respect, in addition to the above activities, the online demining will be carried out."

There is a notable increase of cases of people with ASD and, accordingly, higher number of adults and elderly with ASD. So, there is an urgent need of disposing professionals with enough knowledge, skills and competences to provide a quality and efficient service to these persons and their families. In this regard, IPA+ project responds to these needs to better prepare different kind of professionals for competent care or attention in order to respond to the demands of this population. Thus, the project aims to strengthening skills of professionals working (presently or expected in the future) with people with autism through the development, at European level, of a course that will be based on basic and specific and real curricular requirements. So, the project entails the development, implementation, transfer and dissemination of an innovative training focused on a minimum package of theoretical contents, intervention strategies as well as professional competences and attitudes enabling professionals dispose a basic background to deal with autism in different labour settings. Moreover, the specific objectives of IPA+ are: - To know the curricular and training requirements of a course of this nature addressed to professionals working with people with ASD.- To define the basic knowledge and competences about autism that every professional must have for a competent and satisfactory care based on the research about curricular requirements.- To design a new training and work based learning for the development of competent professionals from different fields.- To implement this training in a sample of professionals in the different countries participating in the project.- To evaluate the quality of the course.- To make freely available all project outputs for potential users and stakeholders through the development of a toolkit.- To hold national and international conferences for disseminating the project outputs. - To establish a network of people working on ASD projects for knowledge exchange and co-creation.IPA+ involves 5 entities from 4 different countries: - Polibienestar Research Institute from the University of Valencia, Spain (coordinator of the project).- Autismo Burgos, Spain.- Portuguese Federation for Autism, Portugal.- Serbian Society of Autism, Serbia.- Autism Europe, Belgium.The coordinator is a research institute at a public university with a large know-how on ASD, research and methodologies. The three involved autism associations will be involved in the different activities in a close contact with our target users. And, an international association with strategic alliances with a large number of partners will be in charge of the project dissemination and evaluation.The project will begin with a research on curricular and training requirements for professionals in the field of ASD through a mixed methodology: review of the literature and the organisation of focus groups with relevant stakeholders. The results of this research will be crucial for the development of the subsequent phases of the project. Secondly, the curriculum will be developed on the basis of the curricular research and will be validated with experts through a Delphi study. Once the curriculum will be ready, partners will develop the associated learning units. Through a complementary learning activity, these learning units will be piloted among key persons from each partner organisation and also validated by the whole consortium. This learning activity will be very relevant to train the future trainers of the course which will be implemented in Spain, Portugal and Serbia by a blended format. Finally, the main findings and outputs developed in the project will be compiled in an attractive, useful and easy-to-use format through a Toolkit which will be available at the IPA+ website.IPA+ will deliver a research, a curriculum and associated learning units, a validated course and a toolkit for a wide kind of professionals working with people with ASD or interested in this labour sector. These outputs will be supported by a comprehensive and integrative assessment along the different activities framed in the project, as well as by a complete package of dissemination activities, such as multiplier events, a project website, eNewsletters, etc. So, IPA+ is expected mainly to:1. Raise awareness and increase knowledge of ASD for different profiles of professionals.2. Increase background, motivation, willingness and confidence of professionals to work with people with ASD. 3. Increase collaboration and cooperation between service providers in the field of autism and other organisations from different fields: education, healthcare, social services, etc.4. Generate a good practice at European level regarding training of professionals working with people with ASD agreed by experts from different countries.5. Create open-access resources and outputs for a wide and relevant audience of stakeholders.

Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC, frequently defined as ASD - Autism Spectrum Disorders) are neurodevelopmental conditions, characterized by social communication difficulties and restricted and repetitive behaviour patterns. There are over 5 million people with autism in Europe – around 1 in every 100 people, affecting lives of over 20 million people each day. Alongside their difficulties, individuals with ASC tend to have intact and sometimes superior abilities to comprehend and manipulate closed, rule-based, predictable systems, such as robot-based technology. Over the last couple of years, this has led to several attempts to teach emotion recognition and expression to individuals with ASC, using humanoid robots. This has been shown to be very effective as an integral part of the psychoeducational therapy for children with ASC. The main reason for this is that humanoid robots are perceived by children with autism as being more predictable, less complicated, less threatening, and more comfortable to communicate with than humans, with all their complex and frightening subtleties and nuances. The proposed project aims to create and evaluate the effectiveness of such a robot-based technology, directed for children with ASC. This technology will enable to realise robust, context-sensitive (such as user- and culture-specific), multimodal (including facial, bodily, vocal and verbal cues) and naturalistic human-robot interaction (HRI) aimed at enhancing the social imagination skills of children with autism. The proposed will include the design of effective and user-adaptable robot behaviours for the target user group, leading to more personalised and effective therapies than previously realised. Carers will be offered their own supportive environment, including professional information, reports of child’s progress and use of the system and forums for parents and therapists.