ICF: New Educational Horizons in Healthcare

Abstract

In 2001, the 54th World Health Assembly approved a new International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) tool, which addresses all individuals, not just those with disabilities. It advocated a biopsychosocial approach to the individual, with a much more pedagogical than clinical focus.
In 2027, with subsequent integration of the ICF-CY (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – Children and Youth), disability has been framed as a multidimensional social phenomenon, a health condition that can influence an individual’s social participation and activity, depending on contextual factors, both environmental and personal, embodied in the concepts of inclusion, globality, and coresponsibility.
Health becomes a state of human functioning that involves the entire person in their living environment.
This focus helps thinking beyond a strictly medical model, especially where medicalized classifications,
used to certify students, stigmatize diversity in behavior and learning. Clinical diagnosis is not essential in the educational field. For both educationalists and socio-pedagogical educators, the individual is viewed as a unity in which everything is connected, in the interaction between organs, functions, and abilities. It is essential to understand the cultural, economic, and emotional background, which constitutes the “daily bread and butter” of socio-pedagogical educators and pedagogists. They are trained to focus on the individual’s external environment and not to primarily seek out a possible internal disorder, engaging the solidarity and professional energies of the local community, with the aim of promoting an educational community for primary and secondary prevention, including through peer support.