Parental involvement is a crucial force in children’s development, learning and success at school and in life [1]. Participation, defined by the World Health Organization as ‘a person’s involvement in life situations’ [2] for children means involvement in everyday activities, such as recreational, leisure, school and household activities [3]. Several authors use the term social participation emphasising the importance of engagement in social situations [4, 5]. Children’s participation in daily life is vital for healthy development, social and physical competencies, social-emotional well-being, sense of meaning and purpose in life [6]. Through participation in different social contexts, children gather the knowledge and skills needed to interact, play, work, and live with other people [4, 7, 8]. Unfortunately, research shows that children with a physical disability are at risk of lower participation in everyday activities [9]; they participate less frequently in almost all activities compared with children without physical disabilities [10, 11], have fewer friends and often feel socially isolated [12-14]. Parents, in particular, positively influence the participation of their children with a physical disability at school, at home and in the community [15]. They undertake many actions to improve their child’s participation in daily life [15, 16]. However, little information is available about what parents of children with a physical disability do to enable their child’s participation, what they come across and what kind of needs they have. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate parents’ actions, challenges, and needs while enhancing the participation of their school-aged child with a physical disability. In order to achieve this aim, two steps have been made. In the first step, the literature has been examined to explore the topic of this thesis (actions, challenges and needs) and to clarify definitions for the concepts of participation and social participation. Second, for the purposes of giving breadth and depth of understanding of the topic of this thesis a mixed methods approach using three different empirical research methods [17-19], was applied to gather information from parents regarding their actions, challenges and needs.
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Despite continuous efforts in various economies, amongst others in South-East Asia, the full potential of social entrepreneurship (SE) is difficult to realize (STEPup project comparative study findings). Challenges that need to be addressed include the lack of skilled employees, business understanding among founders, access to funding and infrastructure and a lack of social impact measurement. Higher education institutions (HEI) are often challenged with limited engagement, also in terms of student support of early entrepreneurial activity. This disbalance has also been observed in Thailand and Myanmar, with the Erasmus+ funded project STEPup (2020-2023) seeing an opportunity to create and strengthen innovative social entrepreneurship practices for disruptive business settings in the two participating countries. Research based on the review of scientific articles, the conduct of focus groups (n= 42 from 38 different external stakeholder organizations) and numerous interviews and creative sessions with stakeholders of the social entrepreneurship domain also revealed the necessity to act in a self-organizing and organic SE support system. This paper aims to present recommendations and strategic guidelines to increase access and opportunity for existing social enterprises and social entrepreneurs who are planning to create and sustain an SE ecosystem through the framework, support, expertise and structure of existing higher education institutions. In addition, Higher Education Institutions in Myanmar and Thailand would serve as a good practice case on how to design and develop resource hubs for social enterprise practitioners and engage stakeholders from all sectors to tackle social issues and promote awareness of the social enterprise sector’s potential.
MULTIFILE
This project builds upon a collaboration which has been established since 15 years in the field of social work between teachers and lecturers of Zuyd University, HU University and Elte University. Another network joining this project was CARe Europe, an NGO aimed at improving community care throughout Europe. Before the start of the project already HU University, Tallinn Mental Health Centre and Kwintes were participating in this network. In the course of several international meetings (e.g. CARe Europe conference in Prague in 2005, ENSACT conferences in Dubrovnik in 2009, and Brussels in April 2011, ESN conference in Brussels in March 2011), and many local meetings, it became clear that professionals in the social sector have difficulties to change current practices. There is a great need to develop new methods, which professionals can use to create community care.
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