Support Programs for Developing Competences of Teachers as an Essential Factor for Successful Inclusive Education

Inclusive education represents not only a right of children with special education needs to access educational and social opportunities and experiences, but also a requirement regarding services of successful educational systems that support the principles of equity and diversity. We consider that the main factor for a successful inclusion is represented by the professional and personal competences of teachers, which need to have our continuous and thorough consideration in terms of training, development, and support within the educational contexts. In this view, teachers need to have access to training programs that continuously will facilitate the make use of teachers’ knowledge, practices, and expertise in improving intervention and overcome various barriers. These training programs may refer to specialized initial and in-service training, supervision, mentoring, networking, school consultation, working in multidisciplinary teams and personal development programs.


Introduction
Inclusive education means the finding of the most efficient support systems for people with disabilities, based on their specific and complex needs, so these systems can contribute to their general development, including communication and language, social and emotional skills, and adaptive behaviors (Hathazi, Rosan, 2019). Inclusive education is strongly connected with terms such as diversity, acceptance, rights, access, equality, opportunity, participation. Inclusive education is defined as being the process that enables participation of children and reduces the possibility of exclusion from curriculum, culture, and local school community (Booth, Ainscow, 2011). Black-Hawkins, Florian and Rouse (2007) state that inclusion means that all children should study together, in a context in which each individual is valued and is actively involved in what is taught and learned (apud Florian, Spratt, 2013). Inclusive education implies that to a based on the notion that schools should, without question, provide for the needs of all the children in their communities, whatever the level of their ability or disability" (Foreman, 2011, p. 548 cited REVISTA EDUCAÇÃO E CULTURA CONTEMPORÂNEA | v. 17, n. 51, p. 010-027, 2020. ISSN ONLINE: 2238-1279 12 by Woodcock, Hemmings, Kay, 2012). Salend (2011) presents inclusive education as being characterised by a philosophy of acceptance and belonging to a community, a philosophy of cooperation and partnerhsip between student, family, teacher and community, respect of diversity and valuing of each person, assuring high quality education and education for all children of the community (Salend, 2011apud Hornby, 2015. Great importance is attributed to the efficiency of teamwork and the cooperation and communication between the members of the team, valuing each persons' contribution and expertise. The factors that assure a successful implementation of inclusive education strategies refer to: the open attitude of school towards diversity, qualified staff, differentiated curriculum, facilitation of participation, adaptive behavior approach, approach of social and emotional abilities, concrete opportunities, holistic approach, partnerships, evidence-based decisions, exploring social aspects such as wellbeing as part of results of learning, development and implementation of support programs, implementation of Shalock model regarding quality of life (Hathazi, Rosan, 2019). Other facilitating factors for a successful inclusion refer to the open attitude of school and teachers towards inclusion, qualified teachers, support for continuous professional development of teachers, development of documents such as individualised intervention plans and adapted and differentiated instruction and curriculum, partnership with parents and other specialists in a professional network (Hathazi, 2013).
Active participation of children with special education needs is regulated and supported in the majority of countries through legislation, policies and methodologies, but the way in which this process will become a success for the child and his or her family has to be continuously evaluated and supported through different services and systems. The support systems refer to qualified and itinerant teachers, additional resources, involvement of parents, adaptation of environment, curricular adaptation, differentiated assessment and instruction, continuous professional development, socio-educational systems of support (psychological, health, educational, social assistance (Vrăşmaş, Vrăşmaş, 2012). Shani (2014) identified four main components influencing the success of implementation of inclusive education which refer to: a) policy and legislation; b) quality of support received by pupils with special education needs; c) quality of training for teachers and specialists, and d) type of impairment and educational capabilities (apud Shani, Hebel, 2016). In the Kinsey Report (Barber, Mourshed, 2007cited by Malm, 2009) it REVISTA EDUCAÇÃO E CULTURA CONTEMPORÂNEA | v. 17, n. 51, p. 010-027, 2020. ISSN ONLINE: 2238-1279 13 is stated that the quality of an educational system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers, that the only way to improve results is to improve instruction and that the achievement of results is possible only when mechanisms are implemented to assure high quality instruction for each child. Roldão (2009) and Rodrigues and Nogueira (2011) cited by Gaitas and Alves Martins (2016) maintain that the principal reason for failures in school success is related to the lack of teacher skills when creating learning opportunities for all students.

Implications of inclusive education and teacher training programs
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the  (Malm, 2009) These competences need to be approached in teacher training programs where they are not only presented, described and discussed, but they are going to be assumed by the teachers as values in action and become a routine and a way of functioning and performing in education and intervention. It is an ongoing process, to get selfawareness of style of teaching, communicating and behaving, as an intervention and interaction style, that becomes personal and it is used in professional contexts and settings. The OECD's comparative review on teachers noted (OECD, 2005): effective professional development is on-going, includes training, practice and feedback, and provides adequate time and follow-up support. Successful programmes involve teachers in learning activities that are similar to ones they will use with their students and encourage the development of teachers' learning communities. There is growing interest in developing schools as learning organizations, and in ways for teachers to share their expertise and experience more systematically.
Evaluations of teacher training programs state that there is a need to re-think and re-structure teacher training programs, taking into consideration the complex and various 14 needs of students, aspects of inclusion and also specific support according to the needs of individuals, available evidence-based studies, various educational paradigms, legislation and implemented programs, promoted approaches, expectations of families and competences of professionals. (OECD, 2017). In a study realized by Avramidis, Bayliss and Burden (2000) the results revealed the importance of professional development in the formation of positive attitudes towards inclusion, more specifically teachers with university-based professional development appeared both to hold more positive attitudes and to be more confident in meeting the IEP requirements of students with SEN.
Professional development has to be considered with a constructive and systematic approach to support teachers in developing a positive attitude towards students with disabilitIes (Tristani, Bassett-Gunter, 2020). There is a need to take into consideration the training of teachers so it becomes more contextualised and flexible, providing possibilities for diversity in rhythms and pathways of learning progression (Vaillant, 2011cited by Ozel et al., 2018. In the TALIS report (OECD, 2009)  Teacher training programs need to take into consideration not only the information and working competences that need to be presented and discussed, but also raising awareness of the implications of diversity and the key elements that need to be focused on by the teachers while planning and carrying out educational activities.
Sometimes, teachers cannot identify the causes of difficulties, or even the difficulties themselves, attributing other interpretations to behaviors, barriers, causes, results.
The needs of teachers who are at the beginning of their career may include: -receiving of just in time learning rather than just in case learning so that information is usable immediately in the situation of difficulty with immediate practicality and results, -accessing information and the possibility to get prompt answers asking the right questions or identifying the right questions to be asked Teachers need to be aware that a successful intervention process needs to be structured and monitored, with the skills to make the necessary adaptations whenever the specific contexts require. The development of educational programs and individualized intervention plans need to be based on a comprehensive evaluation process, so that the results of the evaluation are put into further objectives in education or intervention. This transfer requires developed competences, both in assessment and in planning, so that there is no gap between the two essential stages. The development of a responsive environment, with opportunities for interaction and participation is also a factor that contributes to the success of child participation, achievement and inclusion. It is also identifying the adequate resources that will be used and the experience of teachers in using these resources is also a major component of inclusion.

Support programs for teacher training and development of professional competences
The necessary abilities and competencies should always be developed and upgraded through continuous training and lifelong learning. The abilities gained through mentoring are meant to help the teachers to offer a personal high-quality support to all the students, as part of the curriculum (Donaldson, 2010). Hiroyuki (2008) conceptualized the concept of school consultation, citing Caplan (1970) stating that "Consultation is a process of interactions between two professional persons, the consultant, who is a specialist and the consultee, who invokes his help in regard to a current work problem with which the latter is having some difficulty, and which he has decided is within the former's area of specialized competence". Hiroyuki (2008)  Mentoring is essential for the professional development in all the stages of a teacher's career and all teachers should see themselves as mentors, but mentors are mainly in the same institution, and they are teachers or specialist who has more expertise and years of practice. A mentor must have the knowledge and personal qualities and abilities necessary to address the needs of the young teachers and must also be able to create a friendly environment meant to positively stimulate the participants. The characteristics of mentoring refer to a relationship of one to one or one to a group, in which the mentor has more expertise and knowledge, involves a situation of crisis or difficulty that needs to be taken into consideration and decisions should be made or problems should be solved, hopefully in a short time, or there is a transition period that needs more information, way of thinking, way of working (Tufar, 2017).
The main purpose of mentoring is understood as any sustained relationship between a more knowledgeable person (or others) and a novice, in which the primary objective is the professional development and/or overall growth of the novice toward a desired level of competency (West, 2016 In this way the teacher will realise that the new competencies can be immediately put in use and that they will make a difference. West (2016) describes the differentiated coaching model as a four-step process, in which the coach first draws a hypothesis about the teacher's natural style and identifies the teacher's beliefs, then they identify together the difficulty which needs to be solved and the coaching plan is developed to address the problem. Hawkey (1997) citing Dunne and Bennet (1997) presents a learning framework and dimensions of teaching that will support the process and progress within the model of mentoring. These include several competences that refer to teaching, management, monitoring, ethos, planning and preparation and written evaluations. Some of the aspects that are included consists of direct instruction with describing, explaining, demonstrating, using guided practice, structured conversations, management of resources and rules, evaluations and monitoring, deciding on aims, objectives, curriculum , but also the sense of purpose and the ambiance. Hawkey (1997) citing Saunders, Pettinger and Tomlison (1995) identifies four typologies of mentors. These are the hands-off facilitator mentor, the progressively collaborative mentor, the professional friend mentor and the classic mentor. Each of the types emphasizes different aspects and ways of mentoring that is the hands-off facilitator type will be based on discussions, rather that teaching, the progressively collaborative will work along trainees and offer advice within the process, the professional friendly would praise and evaluate the work of the mentee within the classroom and the classical types would council, advise, recommend and evaluate (Hawkey, 1997).
Teachers should develop also their reflection skills, which is a critical component of teaching practice, because being reflective practitioners requires systematic and structured training which integrates their peers' advice, their supervisors' recommendations and their own experiences into their own practice (Kim, Baylen, Leh, Lin, 2015). Schön (1983)  19 prior understandings which have been implicit in his behaviour. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation". (Schön 1983: 68). Zeichner and Liston (2011) state that teaching means both thinking and feeling, and those who can reflectively think and feel, will have more professional rewards. In a synthesized definition of reflection, Reynolds (2011:5) sustains that "reflection involves thinking about past or ongoing experience of events, situations or actions so as to make sense of them, potentially with a view to informing future choices, decisions or actions".
Argyropoulos and Nikolaraizi (2009) citing Reynolds (1992) argues that in order for teachers to reflect successfully on their teaching activities, they have to use self-reflective methods such as continuous evaluation of their students' results, reviews of their classroom lives and writing journals of thoughts and feelings.
Sellars ( 2017) presents a personal model of reflection in which the first step is to acknowledge the condition and the situations that triggers reflection, meaning the need to identify the experience that will be reflected upon. The WHAT? Question, will be followed by the SO WHAT? Question, determining the need to identify the causes and the implications that need to be analysed and discussed, finalising with the question NOW WHAT as a following plan of action.
In many times, teachers do not have the know-to develop and to put into practice their own reflective skills, so that this will make it difficult for the mentor/coach/supervisor to train accordingly, because as it it mentioned by Edwards and Thomas (2010) apud Hébert (2015), reflective practice cannot be just a set of skills to be taught, as it becomes rigid and with a lot of contraints, supporting the very technicist perspective that the reflective practice was meant to avoid.
Teacher self-efficacy is defined as a teacher's "judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of students' engagement and learning, even among those students who may be difficult or unmotivated" (Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk-Hoy, 2001, p. 783 cited by Woodcock, Hemmings, Kay, 2012). Through reflection, there is a link between learning and action and experience ( Reynolds, 2011). Reynolds ( 2011) proposes a series of stages that will lead to reflective teaching practice. These are (a) engaging with reflection, (b) thinking reflectively, (c) using reflection, (d) sustaining reflection, and (e) practicing reflection, and will be used according specific need, time and context.

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In the following, starting with the problem-solving approached called also the IDEAL (Identify, Define, Explore, Act, Look) approach, which is developed by Bransford and Stein in 1993. (Kim, Baylen, Leh, Lin, 2015), we will conceptualise the model to the professional development of teachers regarding inclusive education.
Using the presented approach, the teacher/specialist should prepare for the inclusion of a child with disability so that decisions will be based on evidence and reflections upon the implications, development and assessment. Identifying problems or difficulties and opportunities will start with the preparation for the situation of a child with disability who is going to enter a specific education context (mainstream, regular classes). Knowing the disability, implications of disability, any possible results of previous assessments or school documents, will support the teacher in creating a responsive and supportive environment, ask for any information from other members of the multidisciplinary team that will enable early inclusion. In this view, the factors that will contribute to a successful inclusion refers also to the readiness of the child with SEN (special education needs) for the inclusion, the initial assessment, the involvement of parents in the whole process, the type of information that their future peers have, the openness of the school management towards the inclusion, the training of the teachers and their expertise and availability, the presence of the multidisciplinary team, the (Maier, 2016): Cooperation between teachers from the special education system and teachers from regular schools is important as it enables access, participation and curricular development (Șerban, 2016).
In the second phase, that is to define goals, after an initial evaluation, the aim of the inclusion should be understood and all objectives and strategies would follow and work within that aim, which is to form independence in learning, functioning, communication, behavior for the child with disability. The aspects that will be approached here will refer to the secure physical environment, the specific evaluation and the profile of development, REVISTA EDUCAÇÃO E CULTURA CONTEMPORÂNEA | v. 17, n. 51, p. 010-027, 2020. ISSN ONLINE: 2238-1279 21 curricular adaptation with possible assistive technologies, specific strategies in following the curriculum, learning environment (Best, Heller, Bigge, 2010).
One possible common error is that usually teachers equal a successful inclusion only to knowledge progress and access of school curriculum, neglecting the needs for social emotional development, communication and interaction, language and communication in terms of functional abilities. Black-Hawkins (2010) also suggests that the inclusion of a child has little meaning if there is no consideration also to the achievement that he or she needs to experience.
The third phase refers to possible strategies. This does not mean that the teachers should use the try and error approach, but should decide based on the needs of the child, the objectives and the environment. This process will be reflective-based, meaning that there will be an ongoing monitoring and reflection of the process and results. This process should be reflection orientated and the teachers should become a reflective practitioner.
Reflective teachers are those who are aware of the reasons behind the decisions they make and the consequences of those decisions (Smith, Geng, Black, 2017 In the same approach, developing and using a reflective log by specialists in education and therapy, supported and evaluated by an expert or a specialist, with continuous feed-back and encouragement for reflection and projection of each step and its results in the learning or development of competences of teachers. Reflection require reflective practitioners to participate in a continuous cycle and self-assessment (Shalabi, Sameem, & Almuqati, 2018). Zeichner andListon (1987: 24 apud Farrell, 2011) distinguished between routine action and reflective action, for teachers' routine action is strongly guided by tradition, but the reflective action considers any form of active, 23 will focus on classroom organization, teaching and learning strategies, and types of interaction and communication (Watson-Gegeo, 1988apud Farrell, 2011.
The use of a reflective journal combined with a supportive environment is an excellent modality for teachers to tackle aspects and to explore issues and concerns that are of personal and/or professional interest (Smith, Geng, Black, 2017). The only risk and disadvantage is that it is acknowledged that it is difficult to use extensive reflective exercises for a long period of time, as teachers may see it as a required extra (Lee 2007and Liou 2001 cited by Ene, Riddlebarger, 2015). Ene and Riddlebarger ( 2015) state that other challenging factors may be the limited theoretical background and practical experience, and also that the reduced opportunities for carrying out practical activities to reflect on. Critical systematic reflection is a necessary condition for quality teaching and reflection can promote construction of professional development, based on continuous learning and on the development of a school community (Martins, Coimbra, Pinto, and Serradas (2015).

Conclusions
The necessity of support programs for teachers has been subject to numerous