ICI Staff in Czech Republic

Roma children dance at a museum during the AAIDD/ICI trip to the Czech Republic in October. The Roma are a minority population in Central and Eastern Europe with a long history of discrimination.

Several Institute on Community Integration staff members were selected to join the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Delegation to the Czech Republic, which concluded October 9.

ICI Director Amy Hewitt and colleagues Renáta Tichá, Barbara Kleist, and Susan O’Nell participated in the delegation, which provided an opportunity to research the support provided for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in three regions of the Czech Republic: Central Bohemia, South Moravia, and South Bohemia.

Delegates examined how the nation’s history, culture, and context shaped its approach to intellectual disability. The group also learned about the structure and delivery methods of IDD services and to what extent people with IDD themselves participate in the development of their support services.

“This trip to the Czech Republic, visiting academic programs, government agencies, and community provider organizations, validates for me that so many of the issues related to lifelong services and support for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities are simply universal,” Hewitt said, noting that while many countries’ disability laws and policies differ, ableism is a common barrier. “In the end, it is about our humanness and how each person chooses to believe, interact with, and include others. No matter the country I have visited, these issues seem to be the driving force behind the pace of change toward true inclusion.”

For Tichá, the trip was a homecoming to her native Czechia, with stops in four Czech cities and one Moravian city. The group participated in a research seminar at the Faculty of Education at Masaryk University in Brno , where presenters shared research initiatives focused on behavior challenges of children with autism, tutoring for students at risk of falling behind their peers academically, and an evaluation framework for service quality in the IDD sector. The evaluation framework discussion was led by Jan Šiška, who earlier was a Fulbright research professor at the Institute and who is a faculty member at Charles University in Prague.

“The Czech Republic, along with other Central and Eastern European countries, is home to a minority Roma population with a long history of discrimination,” Tichá said. During a museum trip as part of the delegation, she said, the group learned about the culture and traditions of the Roma, which subsequently helped the group understand the importance of organizations’ work with Roma youth and young adults who struggle in education or with their wellbeing.

“In recent years at ICI, I have been collaborating with several Czech and Moravian universities, including Charles and Masaryk Universities, so this delegation gave me the satisfaction of not only visiting my Czech and Moravian colleagues in person, but also of sharing with my U.S. colleagues the work that is going on in the field in my home country,” Tichá said. “I firmly believe and have experienced so much through my international work that an international exchange of ideas and practices often leads to increased innovation and to richer collaboration.”

Much of the progress in accessibility made since 1989 has been grounded in the Convention for Rights of People with Disabilities (CPRD), which was signed and ratified by the Czech Republic in the early 1990s, Kleist noted.

“There are obvious accessibility challenges for historic buildings, some of which predate the 13th century, but inclusion is a priority for the Czech people we visited,” she said. “We heard about promising university training programs for direct support professionals, which could help alleviate the workforce shortage. It was less clear how much progress has been made in including people with IDD in the Czech culture. Segregated schools and institutional care still exist, though advocates are pushing to move toward supporting people in the community.”

Like Hewitt, O’Nell noted the common challenges of disability justice and service initiatives in countries with roots in institutionalization and eugenics.

“These two things sent both our cultures down a path of exclusion of people with disabilities that is still present in our cultures,” O’Nell said. “It was wonderful to see the dedicated efforts of many professionals and advocates in the country and they have made great strides in a short time, but the challenges to inclusion were real and familiar in many ways. Both countries have so much more to do.”