Education, Procedures for Student with Disabilities Simplified

Procedures concerning the evaluation of student disability (in compliance with the articles 12 and 13 of the Law no. 104/92) has been simplified. The addition to the Resolution of the Regional Executive Board about the “Guidelines for the selection and assessment process of students with disabilities to take care of school inclusion”.

The procedure for school inclusion of students with disabilities has faced so far a lot of appeals from those parents who applied for special education teachers.

Often, the right to a special education teacher was recognized for a high number of students, but that same right was later on removed. And the reason is the administrative procedure that involves different Bodies and Institutions, such as Schools, INPS (Italian National Social Security Institute) and ASL (Local Health Units) who do not work jointly.  

Nowadays, thanks to the job done by the Regional Advisory Committee Regional Law no. 11/84, relatives who are willing to get the benefits established by the Law no. 104/92 will face a simplified administrative procedure that has no misleading points and red tape.  

Vice President of Regione Campania Guido Trombetti stated: “The completion of this project is a major achievement and is a prize for the good job of the Committee”.

He concluded: “This is how Regione Campania complies with current rules that establish important stages such as the functional diagnosis and the IEP, and, in particular, to follow the enhancement of the children over time. This is a result that makes our region rank among the first concerning these issues”.

President of the Committee Giovanni Delrio stated: “After the approval of the resolution, we continued our job to lay foundations for its proper application. Now, everything is ready to welcome the students at school with a right functional diagnosis and, if it works, when the process will be completed, there won’t be any reason to appeal before the Regional Administrative Court for the assignment of a special education teacher, an appeal that costs approximately 1000,00 € per family”.

“To obtain a special education teacher it was necessary to be allowed to benefit from law no. 104; now, an agreement with INPS has been signed for the ad-hoc Committees to give their reply within 30 days. For a proper implementation of the current rules, it is necessary for ASL to enable the Multidisciplinary Units to issue the functional diagnosis based on a well-known assessment system, such as ICF. This is the paper on which the work of the teams for handicap, that are located in all schools, is based. This workgroup drafts the IEP (Individual Educational Plan) that allows to state the number of special education hours needed by the student with disabilities. ASL cooperated in reviewing the Multidisciplinary Units of their Districts and allowing some educational meetings for a proper compliance with the procedure. We asked all General Directors to supply the members of the Multidisciplinary Units who are in charge of the drafting of the Functional Diagnosis report that classifies the disability. Since many operators did not use the Functional Diagnosis, we arranged free seminars for Regione and ASL about it. The last meetings  with ASL NA 3 SUD will be held next month. Moreover, we debated with Provincial and Regional Education Offices to arrange meetings with the Principals, teachers and families to agree on the job to do with them” President of the Committee Giovanni Delrio ended.

These are the outcomes of the presentation Conference arranged by the  Regional Advisory Committee Regional Law no. 11/84, held at the offices of the Regional Administration for Healthcare. Michele Schiano, President of the V Healthcare Committee of the Campania Regional Council, Mariagrazia Sampietro, General Director of INPS Regional Campania Department, Ugo Bouchè  of the Regional Educational Office attended the event, too.