Pilot Study Of A New Training For Professionals Working On Autism From A Transnational Approach: Ipa Plus Project

Working with people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) requires specific and specialized competences and skills that cover their over-the-life needs and family requirements in different contexts and spheres of life. The project IPA+ (www. http://www.ipa-project.eu/) aims at increasing professional competencies of people interested in working in the ASD field through the development of two courses. These courses have different complexity levels; the first one has an introductory approach to ASD and the second one has a deeper approach. The result is a three-month "Comprehensive" course (Level I) with 7 modules and a three-month "Expert" course (Level II) with three 3 modules. The effectiveness of both trainings has been assessed taking the Kirkpatrick's Model as a basis and several evaluation moments were scheduled to collect relevant information at different stages of the training process. The objective of this study is to present the main results related to the implementation of IPA+ courses in three pilot sites: Burgos (Spain), Lisbon (Portugal) and Belgrade (Serbia).