What We Do

The aim of MAITS is to facilitate capacity building amongst health and education professionals working in the disability sector in low-resource countries – people mainly working with children with cerebral palsy, intellectual disability and autism.

This is achieved through supporting staff access to training and development, either by funding staff in low-resource settings to attend training at regional centres of excellence or by funding specialist health and education professionals to travel to an organisation to provide structured training and hands-on support on site. MAITS has been developing training packages and resources to be used for such purposes as well as tools to support disability work in low-resource settings.

We target our training and support in three main areas:
(I) Training and resources for generic workers
(II) Continued Professional Development for teachers and allied healthcare professionals
(III) Training to undergraduates as part of their programme

Our principals:

• To provide training and support to organisations and individuals with limited access to up-to-date training and resources, using sustainable and appropriate approaches with measurable outcomes.
• To foster long-term relationships with our overseas partners through repeated visits.
• To support the capacity-building of organisations through partnership and collaboration, and to be responsive to the requirements of each setting.
• To support local organisations and professionals to meet these training needs where possible.
• To provide multidisciplinary input where possible and appropriate.
• To reach as many people as possible by bringing organisations together and encouraging the cascading of knowledge to others.

How we operate:
Recruitment of Trainers

• Individuals who have specialist skills in working with children or adults with disabilities apply to register with MAITS as a MAITS trainer. To be registered, individuals must comply with certain criteria and are interviewed either face-to-face or by phone or skype. They are then invited to attend a MAITS information session.
• To date, trainers who have registered with MAITS have mostly been based in the UK. We welcome specialists based within the countries or regions where most where trainings take place to register with us as well.

Provision of Training
(i)Grants

• Training requests from overseas organisations are sent out to our register of trainers (UK and regional) who are invited to contact the organisation directly. In future, organisations will be able to post up their request directly on our website.
• Selected applicant(s) can then apply to MAITS for a grant. All logistical arrangements are made between the host organisation and the applicant(s) themselves.
• MAITS also provides grants to professionals who have an existing relationship with an organisation and are looking for some extra funds to help with a training visit.

Please note: MAITS offers grants of varying amounts. For regional travel they may be up to £250. For travel to Asia or Africa from Europe, they may be up to £500 and £750 respectively. The exact amount awarded depends on many factors, including estimated overall costs of trip, projected impact of training, relevant experience and expertise of trainer, number of people of the same profession applying at once, number of grants already awarded to the applicant or the organisation receiving training.

(ii)Projects

• Requests for training from ‘partner organisations’ overseas have been met through visits from UK or regional professionals with full funding and support from MAITS.
• Materials developed have been used to develop training resources which are piloted, evaluated and modified through further visits.

MAITS is currently reducing the number of ‘project trips’ and increasing the number of grants it provides.

Support to recieve training:
More recently we have started to provide funding for individuals overseas to attend training in their local region. We would like to extend this area of support by becoming an information resource on what training is available locally and who the local experts/centres of excellence are, via our new website which is under development. If you are currently seeking a grant to attend training, please contact info@maits.org.uk