Independent Living Institute www.independentliving.org

Identification of examples of good practice

by Adolf Ratzka, six month report for the CEIL project, 2003-05

A central part in the CEIL project is the dissemination of examples of good practice. To this end the coordinators and partners were to identify concrete existing examples of good practice, from the countries participating in the project or from elsewhere.

1) 2002-11-28: Suggested reading materials

In order to improve the understanding of the principles and approaches of Independent Living the partners were provided with the list below of suggested reading materials consisting of articles and Websites.

Strasbourg Resolutions on Personal Assistance
http://www.independentliving.org/docs2/enilstrasbourgresolutions.html

Personal definition of IL
http://www.independentliving.org/def.html

Principles of IL (Canada)
http://www.cailc.ca/il.htm

Direct Payments
http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/IntroDirectPayments.html

Disability and aging
http://www.independentliving.org/toolsforpower/tools28.html

What’s wrong with institutions?
http://www.independentliving.org/column/king8_00.html

Macro vs Micro Planning (Universal Design)
http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/micro_macro.html

2) 2002-11-28: Guidelines for identification, selection and documentation of examples of good practice

The guidelines contain a list of considerations, strategies, criteria and advice aimed at elobarating the purpose of the activity and assisting the partners with easys step-by-step instructions.

3) 2003-02-11: Questionaire form for the identification of examples of good practice

The Italian partnership prepared and distributed a questionaire (in Italian) among their Italian associates and their Italian network in order to expedite the process of identifying examples of good practice.

4) 2003-03-13: Italian examples of good practice (PDFPDF, 96 KB)

Using their questionaire the Italian partnership compiled, edited and translated 10 documentations of examples of good practice that were distributed among the other partners in the project.

5) 2003-03-27: Comments and additional guidelines

Upon receipt of the 10 Italian examples of good practice additional guidelines, criteria and advice were supplied for the purpose of aiding the Italian partnership to select 3 final examples of good practice.

6) 2003-04-28: Selection of the 3 final Italian examples of good practice

Using the additional guidelines, criteria and advice exampels nr 1, 4 and 8 were selected by the Italian partnership and published on their internet site at www.inrca.it/ita/ces/CEIL/index.htm.

The Spanish and Greek partnerships received suggested reading list, selection guidelines, advice and encouragement. Their examples of good practice are not available at this point in time yet.


Additional criteria in selecting examples of good practice

Nature of input in the project’s origin from persons with disabilities or their organizations (i.e. decisively controlled, run and represented by persons with disabilities themselves). Persons with disabilities are involved as

initiators,
equal partners,
advisors,
only as members of the target group

Projects with more input, from an early stage on, are to be preferred all other things equal.

Nature of input in the project’s operations from persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities are involved as

board members,
managerial staff,
other paid staff
only as objects of intervention

Projects where disabled people have more control over policies and management are to be preferred all other things equal.

Degree of self-determination exercised by persons with disabilities
The project enables the individual to make decisions concerning their daily life

without any professional intervention
with professional intervention, if desired by the individual disabled person
with mandatory professional intervention
The individual can decide only very few things in his daily life.

Projects with more possibilities for individual self-determination are to be preferred all other things equal.

Duration and results of project

Has the project been running long enough to have been evaluated ? Without evaluation - ideally by a reputable university team - it is more difficult to encourage people in other places to start a similar project.

Size and number of participants
Large projects in terms of the number of participants, duration, etc may be easier to raise interest.