EN-Fitram

Our organisations

Work in the field of lifelong education and training in AAT (animal assisted therapies)

The countries involved in the partnership:

• want to cooperate on the European themes of: (I didn’t find the list: we’ll have a look afterwards!)

After that the project Pegasus (2003-2005) has shown the efficiency of the AAT(animal assisted therapy) we want to go further on to search for the conditions of practice and learning necessary for a real efficient work.

We want to adapt the training to the needs of the users (the “patient”) and of the workers, animals and structures necessary ., But we want also to take into account the needs of working life and of the labour market.

We want to interest our social partners and our decision makers on the efficiency of our practices and the need of a legal framework for the VET(vocational educational training) in this area: we shall try to have local, national and European contacts with the decision makers in a formal and informal way, so to strengthen their interest and to stimulate them for participating in our effort to enhance the quality of our practices through adapted trainings.

We hope that our involvement in an European VET programme will contribute to awake their interest to collaborate with us. This will help us to disseminate the results of our research in the political area ant to contribute to European decisions concerning the training necessary for a good quality of AAT.

Our Workprogram

Our partners and we are associations involved in the field of AAT through

Our Practices

in the different aeras of application of the AAT, mainly:

• Physiotherapie
• Psychotherapy especially in the field of learning difficulties, and/or family and social difficulties of integration, but also in psychiatrie (autisme)
• Helping for mental deficiency

Our education and training activities

For the future practitioner, and in the field of lifelong training

All partners are selected for their human and animal competences and want to use them by working together in this project.

But their daily involvement in their work, and their difficulties to access to logistic helps which need financial abilities, must be taken in account in our working project: it must be adapted to our present competences and to our financial potential.

First Time :meeting of stakeholders: july-august 2010

In a first time we propose to each partner to make the inventory of what he knows about the practices in AAT(animal assisted therapy) in his own country , so as about the teachings that are proposed

The main questions:

• “are the practices responding to the needs of the public? (users)
• “is the training accorded to the needs of the workers in the different fields of the AAT and in the different functions needed for an AAT
• “are the animals adapted to this work?”

why yes, why no?

To build the tools for this research the stakeholders of the partners shall meet as soon as the project is agreed, in a several days seminar. Specialists in investigation will assist us. We want a formal, but also an informal approach (through personal contacts , meetings in little groups and so on): we have all experienced the difficulty of heaving a real picture of a situation in AAT through a formal approach only: it must be complement by the words and feelings of the claimant and the providers. We need professional tools( specialists in social investigations) for such an approach, so to are able to make a…

local overview sent to the coordinator for a synthesis which will be the basis of a

Second Time: Seminar:mars 2011

Between the stakeholders of each country accompanied by the persons mainly involved in the first enquiries, and with technical specialists

The question that will emerge is: how can we get further into the problems revealed?

We may expect:

• General problems, so as ethics ones-or political and economical
• Specific problems of the practice:
  • In the different fields of AAT (look above) and in the practices concerning the
    • Different publics
    • Different approaches
    • Different methods
  • Specific problems of the training
    • In the trainings of the workers in their specific function
    • In the trainings of the animals
  • In this seminar we ought
    • to make a choice in the problems revealed:
      • According to our possibilities of approach
      • According to the urgency of their resolving
    • To find methods of their approach , with the help of specialists in social enquiries
    • To distribute the tasks according :
      • To our competences and our interests
      • To our possibilities (time-tools- logistic help-money and so on)
      • To make a budget for our activities

According to the planning that we propose, we think that each of us needs the maximum of mobilities agreed: it means not that only one person have to travel 24 times beyond the frontiers, but that our seminars need more than 1 person representing 1 partner. It means also that a part of the grant accorded has to be spent for tools like specialists (enquiries, computer science…): the coordinator has no grant for that (only for mobilities).So we must put together the competences we already have ,or the voluntaries we can ask, and examine what we really must spent for paying the specialists or other tools for the competences we haven’t.

Third Time: work in little European groups: Spring and Summer 2011

At the end of the second seminar we must have structured thematic european groups : built by persons of different countries who have similar interests, competences, and experiences, so to be able to get further on in the comprehension of a specific question, by studying different practices , according to different trainings for instance:

• which methods are applied by working with children with social difficulties?
• Why these methods?
• Which efficiency: at once, later on?
• What was the training of the therapist, his assistants, his animal?
• How can we understand their results ,compared to others with other methods?
• What may be the influence of environment: family-social workers-economic conditions-and so on.

The groups, with the help of methods built with enquiries specialists, have to extract from their researches the factors which are decisive in the result of the practice. They can apply to the scientific commission (we make a link with a Cost program)

The training needed are determined by these factors.

The groups involved in a same theme are supervised by one or several stakeholders representing the different countries. They have to organize the work and meetings needed by it, to help the members, and to send to the coordinator partial synthesises centred on the factors that appeared as decisive in a type of practice.

Fourth Time: A Seminar : Autumn 2011

With…

• The national stakeholders
• Those who supervised the thematic groups
• The specialists needed

We’ll try to reflect on the essential factors of efficiency in the different areas of the practise of AAT, so as observed, and to build the basis of efficient trainings .in the different fields.

These results must be revealed to all the partners who where involved at each stage of the research, especially to the political deciders.

Fifth Time: European meeting “everybody” Winter 2011

We think at a huge European meeting of all the partners at the end of this part of the work.(with the media and so on)

Sixth Time: Basic European programmes of Education and training in AAT: 2012

Now that we ought to have all the ingredients to understand what is really necessary to do in the different functions of AAT , and which responses where given since to day, it will be rather easy to propose the “right training” at the “right place”.

So we propose:

A Seminar of stakeholders (those who are really involved in the project): mars 2012

To built the common European basis for all training in AAT ,according to the European frameworks, especially those of the EASPD

B. Meetings in the European theme groups :spring 2012

To try to adapt the common basis to the specific needs , by function and by country

C. Final meeting of stakeholders: June 2012

To agree on the structure of the rapport for the Leonardo agency, but also to reflect on a probable project of “transfer of innovations”, so to be able to see how the European countries may adopt our proposals, and how we may help them. We think that it will at first be a huge work with the political deciders.