Serbian IPA+ conference took place on 19th October in Belgrade hosted by partner Serbian Society of Autism (SSA). Considering that pilot course was attended mostly by special educators, with formal education in autism, for the final conference, SSA focused on professionals who work with autism but had no autism specific education, like kinderkarten teachers, mainstream school teachers, psychologists, speech therapists from private practice, doctors, dentists, etc. In total, 48 professionals, parents and other interested parties attenteded the conference.
In addition to presenting the IPA+ curriculum and toolkit, SSA invited 3 key-note speakers to present the core content of IPA+ training. Key-note topics were selected based on 3 modules the pilot course trainees assesed as most relevant of all: early intervention, education of pupils on the autism spectrum, cooperation of families and professionals.
IPA+ partner Dr Nenad Rudic, child psychiatrist and diagnostician, held the presentation “Early intervention and its significance”. Natasa Selic Stankovic, a principal od elementary school with more than 60% of autistic pupils held the presentation “Models of intervention in education of autistic pupils”. Vesna Petrovic, president of SSA and mother of autistic young man, held the presentation “The role of family and professionals in the lives of autistic people, and the importance of their cooperation”.
The entire conference was greatly welcomed by the participants, who praised the choice of topics and the importance and necessity of training such as IPA + for their further work and knowledge improvement. As a result, at the end of the conference, SSA received multiple applications for training.
