Families on the wheels of conversation on education and inclusion

• Main Authors: Maria de Fatima Minetto, Giovanna Beatriz Medina
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Asociación Nacional de Psicología Evolutiva y Educativa de la Infancia Adolescencia Mayores y Discapacidad 2017-11-01
• Series: INFAD
• Subjects: famílias; deficiência; educação; rede de apoio; roda de conversa
• Online Access: http://www.infad.eu/RevistaINFAD/OJS/index.php/IJODAEP/article/view/1030

This paper presents part of the activities developed by the Program for Attention to Children at Risk for Development - PRACRIANÇA (Federal University of Paraná - UFPR / Brazil). Objective: To verify the contributions of a support service to parents of children with disabilities accomplished through Conversation Circles (CC). Method: 108 mothers and 7 fathers of children with different ages and distinct diagnoses, including Autism and Down Syndrome, participated in the study. Twenty-one meetings were held between April and December 2016. Parents were asked to respond what they were looking for in the talk circle, in addition they had to describe with at least 3 words what they were thinking in the beginning and in the end of the meetings. Excel spreadsheets were used to categorize the quantitative data, that was analyzed with thematic and sequential exploration of the corpus, from Bardin (2011), which resulted in thematic categories. Results: Most of parents came to the CC to learn more about inclusion (60.1%), 52.2% were looking for strategies on how to deal with their children, 17.4% wanted orientations about healthcare professionals and 12,2% wanted to understand specific issues about the disorder, disability or diagnosis. Regarding the thoughts expressed in words at the entrance and exit of the meetings, the content analysis resulted in 6 categories. Conclusions: The CC have shown that parents come hopeful to find strategies to deal with issues related to their children. At the departure, most parents express good feelings about what they found, taking with them a greater understanding about the issues dealt there, with less sense of insecurity.