Hic FS minute Angers

1. HIPEN
Hearing Impairment Professional Network
HIC FS -Hearing Impairment Children, Family Support-
GRUNDTVIG PARTNERSHIP PROJECT
2013/2015
FRANCE / HUNGARY / ROMANIA / CROTIA
Angers / Centre Charlotte Blouin Mutualité Française Anjou Mayenne
FRANCE
HIC FS meeting n°1, January 2014 (29.30.31)
Creation of part one of the common guide about family support
Angers Meeting Minute
Wednesday, 29th
Mrs. Christelle Marechal, director of Charlotte Blouin Center is opening the first meeting and she is warmly
greeting everybody. The participants from France, Croatia, Hungary and Romania are welcomed.
Mr. Philippe Belseur is giving everybody some administrative and financial information so that every aspect of
these problems is clear.
Mrs. Isabelle Francois presents the project, underlining its purposes, the outcomes, the tools and approaches
that all of us are going to use.
Further on everybody is invited to present themselves. The French team starts by introducing each member
(name, place of work, type of hearing impaired children they are working with)
Romanian team is up next and each member presents their work. The Romanian parent involved in the project
presents herself too (mother of one hearing impaired daughter with cochlear implant)
The Croatian team presents their members, professionals and parent (mother of two hearing impaired children
both with cochlear implant).

2. The Hungarian team presents its members – name, place of work, and experience in other projects. The parent
from Hungary is a mother of a hearing impaired student with cochlear implant.
Mrs. Isabelle Francois presents the rest of the agenda for today: presentations, project work, breaks, lunch, and
dinner. Further on, she is explaining the rest of the agenda for the next days.
Mrs. Isabelle Francois invites every team to make a 10-15 minutes presentation of their centers/institutions.
Mrs.Gabriela Chirtes proposes that we keep the logo of this meeting for the whole project, but Mr. Ferenc
Boldvai from Hungary comes with the idea that we should personalize that image so that it becomes clear that
it is about hearing impaired children. Mrs. Isabelle Francois promises she is going to look for some appropriated
images and she is going to send some proposals to all of the participant countries.
Further on Mr. Bertrand Lebrun presents the Charlotte Blouin Center.
Mrs. Ioana Serban presents the Technological Special High School for Hearing Impaired Children in Cluj-Napoca.
Mrs. Irena Weigand presents a short film about their institution, “Zlava Rakaj” in Zagreb.
Mrs. Virag Sipos Sollosine presents the Hungarian School, Dr. Torok Bela Ovoda, Altalanos Iskola, EGYMI
Budapest.
Mrs. Isabelle Francois proposes the start of workshop no. 1 – concepts of family support.
Mrs. Catherine Yakovlev presents the definition of concepts of family support as it is understood in France. She
also gives some definitions from a psychology point of view and she explains the concepts from an emotional
and behavioral approach.
After debating all the participants agreed on the following definitions:
 The main core is the family and it can take the following shapes:
 Nucleus family: two parents and children living together
 One parent family: one parent and children
 Stepfamily : remarried parent and children
 Enlarged family: parents, grandparents, uncles/aunts, children living together
 Parenthood: The participants decided that the common term should be being parents.
The legal frame: RIGHTS AND DUTIES
Important! To look for the legal framework for parents with a hearing impaired child (rights and duties).
Suggestion from the Hungarian team: to put in reference of the laws to help parents find it and be aware
of it. Suggestion from the parents: It is important to write into the guide more than just laws, but also
what they have to do for their child, how to guide the child to independence and self-learning.
 Parents support:
 A partnership/cooperation between parents and professionals in order to make the hearing impaired
prepared for social life.
 Administrative support: give maximum of accessibility to rights, possibilities, privileges related to the
law
 Psychological support: parents counselling.
Purposes of the counselling:

3.  Optimizing communication between parent and child
 Working and adapting family relationships
 Understanding and accepting the child’s situation
 Spending more free time with the child
 Learning new ways of relating to the child
 Informing the parents on new educational methods
 Educational support: Experts team
 Multidisciplinary/Pluridisciplinary work : Transfer or combination of concepts, methodology, practices
and points of view from one area to another/other areas in order to have a large view of the child and
to give him a better support.
Thursday, 30th
Mrs. Isabelle Francois is presenting one more time the project and its aims so that it is clear for everybody
what the work should be about.
The most relevant are the outcomes of the project and these are as follows:
Creation of a common guide including:
 A glossary (words that make sense to practices and approaches)
 A list of relevant practices and approaches
 A list of innovative practices and approaches
 A model of a databases to collect information about parents and to personalize family support (=meet
their needs)
 A model of a leaflet aimed at parents about FS
Mrs. Gabriela Chirtes is presenting the Pro Deaf Toolkit Project which could help with the definitions of
concepts.
Mrs. Irena Weigand is proposing to the group a web site for this project which could be useful for
communication. The whole group agrees that this is the best way to stay in contact and to gather all the
information as well as to have easy access to it. Mrs. Weigand will be responsible for this site.
Up next there are presentations from each country about the professional experience with family support.
Hungary presents their experience first through Mrs. Agnes Vary. The synthesis of the presentation was as
follows:
 Increasing parental competence
 Underlining the importance of the connection to education
 The importance of the child-parents connection
 The actual support for the parents resides in: courses, lectures, practical help (i.e. home training), and
parents groups.
 There is no specialist for family support; everybody in the school can do that (psychologist, special
teachers).
The Croatian team presents their practices of family support through Mrs. Irena Weigand. The synthesis of the
presentation was as follows:
 Counselling center in Zagreb
 Parents are considered partners (they attend work and they are involved)
 Siblings and parents workshops for acceptance and help of the disabled child

4.  Festive events
 Sign language courses
ACTION PLAN FOR THE NEXT PROJECT MEETING IN BUDAPEST HUNGARY:
 Talking about glossary (validate the definition we worked on during this meeting, adding more things
to definitions, decide which concepts to put in the guide)
 Experiences with family support: Read Romanian and French presentations, prepare questions for
these presentations. Start the list of good practices.
 Working on the concept of being parents – need of parents opinion
PARENTS TESTIMONIES
French mother no. 1:
 The diagnoses is difficult for the parents
 The medical support is difficult because it does not take into account the feelings of the parents
 The early education center in Charlotte Blouin Center was very good and supportive
 Negative aspect: if at the beginning of the intervention the mother had a better quality of sign
language courses she would have better understood her daughter.
 Parents request teachers of sign language
Romanian mother:
 Speech therapy was very important
 Great support from the Center of Hearing and Language Rehabilitation - Hearing Impaired High School
in Cluj-Napoca
 Important! – Professionals from the center could answer the questions and doubts the mother had
and that was very reassuring.
 No sign language necessary
 Romanian team also read a letter from a deaf mother with two deaf children that wrote about the
importance of communication and about the importance of letting the hearing impaired child belong
to the deaf culture. In her opinion it was important to allow the child to be part of both cultures and to
know both the spoken language and the sign language. She thought the child should have the choice
of the communication that suits him/her best.
Friday, 31
st
 Mothers from Hungary and Croatia will continue with their testimonies
 Team from Romania will present their experience with families
Mother from Hungary:
 Mentor family – a family who has a hearing impaired child and helps/advices other family who has just
received the diagnosis
 Pedagogical support at home – from a supporting travelling teacher
 Positive aspects: meeting with other families
 The existence of a parents club – parents helping other parents
 Important: to make a trustful connection between the family and the teacher
 Important: parents are responsible for the development of their children even after they bring them to
school

5.  What it is needed: mentor family network; web page for parents who need help and advice;
specialized magazines – special education
French mother no. 2:
 Important: administrative support
 Needs: methodological help for homework, a better partnership for some families and
Croatian mother:
Positive aspects:
 All financial help received by law
 Mother is entitled to four hours working time with full salary
 Paid travel expenses for parents and children
 Extended maternity leave up to seven years of the child
Negative aspects:
 No friends for the children
 Feeling of guilt
 Excessive protection of children
Needs:
 Not to lose the job
 Psychological help
 Know their rights
Next meeting in Budapest, Hungary will take place from 20
th
of May – arrival, 21
st
, 22
nd
and 23
rd
of May –
meeting, 24
th
of May – departure
Action plan for the next meeting:
 Questionnaire to send to as many parents as possible
 Have the analysis of the questionnaire before Budapest and presenting the results in the Budapest
meeting
 Organizing debates on the topic of being parents (parents and professionals) – objective: to identify
the needs of the parents
The Croatian team proposes that for the next meeting every team should think of having a deaf
professional participant.
Mr. Phillipe Belseur says that in order to be eligible the deaf person should be from the institution – a
professional or a parent. Mrs Gabriela Chirtes asks if the deaf parent is eligible. The answer from Mr.
Belseur is yes, of course.
Mrs. Gabriela Chirtes asks if it is possible to use information from another European Projects – information
that it is needed in this project. Mr. Belseur says that is possible and it would be a very good idea.