CURRENT SITUATION AND POTENTIAL OF USING ICF-CY IN INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The article reveals the current state and potential of using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health for Children and Youth (ICF-CY) to ensure the educational process of students with special educational needs (SEN) in comprehensive secondary schools in Ukraine. To conduct the study, the format of a desk study was applied, which made it possible to collect information about the use of ICF-CY to support inclusive education in Ukraine and abroad and process it by applying scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison, and generalization. It was found out that ICF-CY can be used to determine the educational needs of students, plan interventions, organize interdisciplinary interaction, monitor the effectiveness of services and results of the intervention, inform and shape policy in the field of inclusive education. Despite the obvious practical value of the ICF-CY and the legislative authority to integrate it in the Ukrainian educational system, its implementation is not very efficient and is being hampered by a number of both internal and external factors. The main internal barrier of using ICF-CY in inclusive education is associated with an insufficiently complete list of environmental factors affecting the functioning of the child. External barriers include the lack of tools for collecting and evaluating information about the impact of the environment on the functioning of students developed based on ICF-CY, inadequate training of specialists to use it, and unadjusted mechanisms for cooperation between educational institutions, medical, social services to obtain a holistic view of the functioning of students. The implementation of ICF-CY in inclusive education will be facilitated by its legal regulation in educational legislation; mastering the skills of ICF-CY application by the students of pedagogical faculties; creation of the guide on ICF-CY for the teams of psychological and pedagogical support of children with SEN; implementation of an informational campaign aimed at explaining the philosophy and principles of the ICF-CY; development of tools for assessing the impact of the environment on the functioning of students with SEN based on ICF-CY; implementation in educational institutions of the procedures for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions planned on the basis of the results of the evaluation of functioning using the ICF-CY.