EN-Fitram

I hope this newsletter will interest you. Maybe it will be difficult to find your own interest in it. And it is difficult for me, too, to know which are the individual interests of each of you .But you may be sure that my first aim is to promote the mediation through animals or art in our relationships with people with disabilities, and the second one is to defend the philosophy of our approach : the respect for humanity, the knowledge that our “patients” represent values that we ought to admire and promote, and the love for animals and nature .I must say that even if the animal is not well recognized as a partner in the Council of Europe, most of our colleagues agree with our philosophy.

And now the most important news :

Having been agreed by the C.E. our ONGI now has a participatory status. This means that our partners (parliament assembly, council of ministers, regio) have to consult us before taking a decision, and that, on the other hand, we have to bring them something to work on: especially the problems of the fieldwork where we have to apply our philosophy every day, our suggestions how to resolve them in a political way, but also our observations of how the political decisions are applied.

Between the sessions, we work, most of the time, in small groups, in this way we can keep in touch with the persons who share the same interests, and work out our proposals together .By doing so we have been able to make a good contact with the EASPD (European .association of services for the persons with disabilities):This huge and powerful federation works in Brussels directly with the E.U. (European union) and knows everything that is going on there. They consider us as a partner (a very small one !) and have already helped us to deposit a project (the L. da Vinci Programme) for the coordination of the methods of therapy by mediation through animals as well as the training of students.

The EASPD developed the ECC (European care certificate), a basic entry certificate in the care sector for persons with disabilities: it will establish a comparable knowledge base for entry level of care staff across Europe, and provides an accessible and transferable certificate for workers. The programme of the ECC proposes us a method of building our own programme according to the views of the E.U If you are interested, I can send it to you.

To this aim, we launched in France a group representing the different perceptions and methods in AAT (animal assisted therapy) and we hope to go on in our efforts for coordination.

The final aims is the official recognition of this kind of work which would open the way to the creation of jobs paid on the level they deserve.

In order to reach this aim, we need the assistance of the EASPD ; which would mean that the FITRAM become a member of the EASPD by paying the fee of 750€. But how can we pay 750€ when we see that very few of you pay their own fee to the Fitram ?

I have met some interesting partners

Such as :

• A government official from London, representing a local welfare project testing out practical ways of improving public welfare in different areas of the UK. It is applied to children from 11 to 13 years, in order to build their resilience, prevent depression and anxiety and promote their (adapted) cooking skills .If you wish, I can bring you in touch with the promoters.
• An expert in the methods of valuation , who took much interest in our work .I think she could help us in our difficulties by assessing the results of our work .How can we measure them? I suppose that most of us have an allergy to those methods, and I feel with them! But, today if we want money, we must submit to these methods…

In general, we observe a rapprochement between EU (who has the money!) and C.E.(who has the brains….ours!…) .For instance, the European parliament has asked the two structures to work together by building an “Area without torture” between the member states.

The violence, indeed, is at the centre of interests in Europe .Especially the violence against children: An example :. the University of Louvain (Belgium) proposes a University Certificate on children’s rights.

The Fitram has published a book about violence to children, written by our president J.P.Klein, psychiatrist.

We would appreciate your contributions.

By all means, out work with the European structures would be more interesting and useful if you contributed more material issued from your own experiences. I know very well, by my own experience, how difficult it is to leave the practice and sit down and write! But it doesn’t need to be long, maybe just a few questions and reflections which would allow us to understand your present position and your expectations.

Thank you, Polen for having done this!

Yours sincerely Marguerite Weith, general secretary

Associated link: European Council