Polish Association for Persons with Intellectual Disability

Polish Association for People with Intellectual Disability (PSOUU) is the country wide parental organisation with local branches established in 1991, founded on the ground of the parental movement dating back to the sixties of the XX century.

All branches are legally and financially independent. The mission of the association is:

• to protect human dignity, a place in the family and society and the quality of life of people with intellectual disability

• to lead them to active participation in social life

• to support them to become accepted and independent in their daily lives.

Gdansk branch of PSOUU has 270 members and operates as a social service provider as well as the mutual support grass-root organisation. Authorities of the Association: General Assembly, Executive Board – 8 people, Control Commission – 3 people

Executive board establishes the institutions run by the association, the chairperson of the board also serves the position of the general director. Each institution has its own general manager who is in charge of all programmes realised in it. Administration and book keeping is separate for the whole association. 136 people are employed. The annual budget is over 9 mln PLN (about 4 mln€). PSOUU Gdansk is registered as an adult education institution.

Institutions run by the Gdansk branch of PSOUU are:

• Early Intervention Centre for children in age 0-7 providing multidisciplinary assessment and rehabilitation,

• Rehab-Education Centre for persons with profound disabilities in age 3-25, the functions of the centre are the part of the public school system and the compulsory education is provided there,

• Occupational Therapy Workshop for adults – provides pre-vocational training ,

• Daily Activities Centre for adults,

• 17 supported living apartments,

• Supported Employment Agency “BIZON” – provides at the job site vocational training, job coaching and work placement of people with intellectual disability,

• Art Gallery “PromArt”- promoting and exhibiting fine arts achievements of people with intellectual disability,

Several long-term projects are carried out in PSOUU:

• “ Vita Activa” Orchestra - integrative percussive orchestra for adults conducted by professional conductor,

• International Meetings with Creativity of People with Intellectual Disability- artistic festival organised every other year, the first edition 1993

• Drum Band “Remont Pomp” – integrative band playing ethnic, avant-garde and improvised music.

• “Big Brother – Big Sister” program

• Theatrical group “TEATRAZEM”

• Photo Club In last 5 years PSOUU Gdansk has successfully developed and carried out four Grundtvig projects with the partners from Caravan 2000 International and with many others.

These projects were addressed to people with disabilities and to the professionals working with them. Majority of them were aimed on informal adult education of PWDs as well as raising professional competences of the staff members through job shadowing and study visits in partner organisations. Majority of these projects were based on fine arts, hand crafts, music and theatre.

Through the years of activities PSOUU has gained a lot of expertise and experience which are valuable in the long life learning processes of PWDs. Especially the methods developed in arts and crafts proved to be very efficient in developing skills which are hardly to develop by traditional learning methodology. In the project PSOUU Gdansk will develop and be the leader of the work package “New leaders”.

Artistic talents and interests refer to PWD in the same statistical proportion as to the rest of the population. The difference is that they PWD have less opportunities to develop them and learn the technics. The package will develop the methodology for training the artistic talented and/or just interested PWD to become the assistants of art therapists and educators in the areas of music, theatre, fine arts and photography.

This methodology will be described in the form of video-book and best practice book and disseminated as one of the Caravan 2000 ELLA offers. PSOUU Gdansk will also be responsible for communication and dissemination of the results on every level of the project through out the ELLA of Caravan 2000 website, Facebook profile and Twitter. The communication and dissemination manager of the project will be appointed and seated in PSOUU.

Back to Top