Capacity Building for Inclusion

UNESCO Centre Seminar

Capacity Building for Inclusion - Identifying Best Practice to Improve Educational and Social Outcomes for Children with Special Educational Needs

This seminar, hosted by the UNESCO Centre at Ulster University, is designed to stimulate discussion on capacity building for inclusion for children with special educational needs (SEN) in Northern Ireland.  On-going developments in policy and legislation around the education of pupils with SEN have taken place within a framework intended to enhance and improve opportunities for inclusion with proposals that place the child at the centre of decision-making processes.  As a group who frequently encounter exclusive practices, the event will discuss the role of the classroom assistant to support educational inclusion and the impact of this in terms of educational experiences and wider social integration.   Through discussion and interaction with an expert panel, exemplars of best practice that optimise inclusion will be shared.  These will be presented in a range of contexts that are grounded in the particular circumstances of a range of SEN, including: learning disability; deaf and hearing impaired; autism; Down syndrome. 

The event demonstrates the inter-disciplinary nature of social sciences and it has potential impact in terms of its significance and reach, with cross-cutting relevance that aligns aspects of education, health, welfare and social policy.  In doing so, it emphasises the importance of a 'joined up' approach to research and policy and encourages greater knowledge transfer and collaboration within and between agencies engaged in the broad area of special education and inclusion. 

Places at the seminar are limited and interest is expected to be high - to reserve a place please RSVP to James Dillon at j.dillon@ulster.ac.uk by 5.00pm on Monday 9^th November 2015.

This event is part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science.