THE PROJECT

The Project

The DDSKILLS developed training courses for digital skills of professional caregivers so they can make better use of new technologies, and support persons with disabilities in the usage of such technologies. The rapid technological advance of past decades, has triggered a dramatic progress in technology usage for assistive and training purposes.

Since true inclusiveness, and deinstitutionalization process pass through all the professionals involved in the care of persons with disabilities, from the lowest levels to the highest ones, there is an increasing need to integrate existing skills, with new approaches and digital competences, able to properly meet these new challenges.

DDSKILLS project, setup an Alliance for developing a new and up to date training curriculum to respond to the needs of care service beneficiaries and properly take advantage of new opportunities offered by technologies. Join us by registering to platform and follow us on social media!

The main Objectives of the project were:

Design a trans-national sector-wide vocational curriculum on pioneer Assistive Technologies (Sensors, Robotics, Smart Homes, Virtual and Augmented Reality) and aids in the health and social care domain taking under concideration the necessity for Green ICT.
Assign to the curriculum EQF level 5 and the referencing NQFs in each consortium country and assign ECVET points to learning outcomes in order to allow for trans-national joint programmes awarded by more than one VET providers (specialized in different technologies).
Design a curriculum that will be taking under consideration the needs of the target groups for independence, social inclusion and self advocacy.
Offer periods of work-based learning with the help of toolkits that the trainee could use in a plug&play mode and apply knowledge in practical "real life" workplace situations. Using the toolkits the trainees will have the opportunity to acquire or develop further the curriculum competences, particularly in work-related training contexts.

Develop a certification scheme that will contain principles and requirements for the certification of Training Materials and the DDSKILLS Curriculum. All Training Materials and Curricula that will be produced within the project will be certified as per the criteria of this scheme. Assessment methodologies will make use of the toolkits for assessing competencies acquired.  
Offer the courses in open data format for specific sectors belonging to “Personal care workers in health services” and “Health professionals not elsewhere classified”,  (ISCO-08 codes: 532 and 226922) in the “Health & social care” Sector23
identify the most appropriate delivery methodologies for the curriculum, using MOOCs and the toolkits as innovative and strategic approaches to teaching and learning.
create online communities of learners and teachers and setup an adequate recertification process.

The results of the project, related to the aforementioned objectives include:

A Multidisciplinary Curriculum in the field of state-of-the-art technologies (Assistive Technologies and aids, Digitalization, Smart Home, Robotics, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Brain Computer interfaces) and the disability domain (Self-Advocacy, technology acceptance and ethical issues, Social networks development, Therapeutic Role playing).
Digital Toolkits. Three toolkits that are increasing trainees engagement and fostering deep learning offering hands on experience with state of the art technologies.
Certification Scheme. A scheme that contains principles and requirements for the certification of Training Materials and the DDSKILLS Curriculum as well as the trainees (Healthcare professionals).
Certified Professionals. These professionals piloted the curriculum and offered feedback to impove it in a way that it is attractive and relevant to the actual market needs. These Professional are forming the communities of learners for the further dissemination and communication of project outcomes.