Vol. 1 No. 16 (2021)

The dynamics of the current civilizational, socio-economic, political, and cultural changes has recently been felt by many as groundbreaking and transgressive. However, people with disabilities, with different developmental and educational needs experience such transformations in a special way, with the increasing intensity of crisis situations, mainly related to the consequences of the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, to become destructive in every aspect of their life.

Identification of new threats and challenges, as well as keeping the existing ones in mind – so that to be eliminated or at least weakened – obliges our authorities and society in general to enhance the system of support provided for these people in the family, school, and local environment, as well as in finding and maintaining employment, allowing for the possibility to benefit from broadly understood cultural goods. The personalized support should therefore be more diversified than ever before, becoming really (not seemingly) available in every possible dimension – psycho-emotional, that of social service provision, care and education, information and rehabilitation opportunities. It will then increase the possibilities of people with disabilities in fulfilling their new social and professional roles, taking on new tasks and challenges, coping with previously unknown situations and making important life decisions.

Both the democratization of social life and the intensively changing reality require greater independence from all of us – citizens with or without disabilities, which leads to more subjective determination in solving personal, family and local matters. People with disabilities though remain in a particularly difficult situation because of the pandemic. Long-term social isolation and complicated access to the health system, schools, social and vocational rehabilitation centers resulted in deterioration of the living conditions, care, therapy and work opportunities for these persons and their families. Another issue worth mentioning is the preparation of mainstream schools for the proper implementation of inclusive education of students with disabilities and special educational needs in relation to identified difficulties and experienced threats, as well as in the context of competency deficiencies of educators. At the same time, in many local communities, on the initiative of local government authorities, associations and foundations ¹, certain activities have been launched to support people with disabilities in achieving better health, to raise the awareness of their needs among parents, educators and specialists to satisfy those needs in the process of appropriate integration and educational inclusion.

The aforementioned aspects, to this or that extent and scope, are discussed in the articles of the proposed to the Reader volume of the journal. We are grateful to all the Authors for their cooperation and inspiring reflections on respecting the rights of people with disabilities, their possibilities, as well as difficulties in the educational and social inclusion of children, adolescents and adults with disabilities and various needs, related to the normalization of the life situation or the preparation of human resources to work with such group of people. We hope that the scientific contribution will benefit the theoretical and practical enrichment of the presented and discussed topics.

Zdzisława Janiszewska-Nieścioruk

¹  It is worth noting that PFRON, through the offer contained in module IV of the program Aid for disabled people affected by the natural disaster or crisis situations caused by infectious diseases, intensively supports the implementation of measures to reduce the effects of the pandemic among local communities of people with disabilities. Local governments may receive financial aid both for their own activities for the benefit of these people to eliminate the effects of the epidemic, and for activities carried out by non-governmental organizations (Resolution No. 1/2021 of the Supervisory Board of the State Fund for Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons, February 25, 2021).