Healthcare4ASD – Updating healthcare professionals VET for working with people with ASD

Healthcare4ASD aims at providing healthcare professionals with a new, innovative, and accessible learning opportunity on ASD.

Grant Agreement Number: 2021-1-FR01-KA220-VET-000025274

Funded by: Erasmus+        Duration: 01/12/2021 – 30/11/2023

Challenge

The prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has increased by 200% over the last 20 years. According to ASDEU (2018), the European Parliament project on ASD, one in 89 children is diagnosed with ASD in the European Union.

Within this context, one of the groups of professionals that interact most with ASD individuals are healthcare professionals, as they are 50 times more likely to work with people diagnosed with ASD. However, their limited general knowledge of ASD, let alone when there is no VET specialization on autism, and the unique characteristics of the ASD population pose a challenging situation that they should successfully manage and address in order to provide high-quality healthcare services.

For this reason, there is an intensified need not only for healthcare professionals to improve their knowledge on how to manage and treat ASD patients but also for VET to modernize their existing curricula and offer specialized training to this specific workgroup.

Innovation

HealthCare4ASD is one of the first initiatives that is going to introduce the topic of ASD in VET for healthcare professionals. The ultimate goal is to provide them with a new and specialized learning opportunity on ASD in order to better manage and treat ASD patients taking into consideration the special characteristics of this group.  

Action

European Commission’s support for the production of this content does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Project Partners