20 childminders successfully trained on autism in France

On June 2020, about twenty childminders from the French department of Nièvre (in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté) took part in the ChildIN pilot training sessions in order to acquire and improve their skills to positively and effectively deal with children on the autism spectrum disorder and their families.

The pilot training was delivered by a trainer from INFA, a training organisation based in Nevers. In order to implement correctly the ChildIN training, this trainer attended the training of trainers’ sessions organized by ChildIN in Porto in November 2019.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the 35 hours training was fully delivered online, disregarding the 25 hours of face-to-face sessions that were planned initially. Due to this unexpected situation, some participants faced some problems of connectivity or lack of time and/or resources to follow the training properly. Thus, access to the online courses has been extended until 19 September 2020 to enable trainees to carry out all the e-learning activities in the best possible conditions.

Despite the difficulties encountered, the majority of the trainees were able to follow the online training and carry out the activities using a Moodle platform. Participants were motivated and involved, and their feedback on the teaching resources was very positive. Feedback from these pilot sessions, both positive and negative, will help to improve the ChildIN training programme for future implementations.

In order to close the training, childminders have been invited to the ChildIN end-of-training certificate ceremony on 19 September 2020. The event will take place in Nevers and each childminder will receive a certificate designed by the project consortium.