Social agriculture is in such a way linked to an educational approach already existing in the multifunctional approach to rural development and can give social and employment benefits in the agriculture, education, health and social sectors. This project intends to create a bridge in which training programmes simultaneously offer opportunities to farmers and those who can become partners of the evolution of social agriculture aiming at a real service for schools, families social care and health services. Starting from a “learning-by-doing” methodology, typical of the traditional farmers’ heritage, will be elaborated programmes based on soft skills, addressed to customers with special needs, and hard skills, such as “gardening and horticulture”, “management of farm animals”, specially trained courtyard animals, “traditional food making” like cheese and bread with traditional recipes, “use of ecologic materials for buildings”, like wood, clay and straw, “knowledge, cultivation and propagation of herbs for health and food purpose". All of these training materials, and some more or different, depending of a State-of-the-Art and Training Needs Analysis, performed by the partners in the preparatory phase, will be elaborated, discussed, shared, adopted, tested and evaluated by the partners. The teaching materials, implemented with case studies, will be available for combined training, on the spot and online for e-learning based on the “social agriculture virtual kit” that will be constituted, like an online suitcase, of basic teaching materials on managing social agriculture and care farm. The courses will be listed according to different target users and level of difficulty and competence, "care farm tutor", EQF Level 3 and 4, "care farm manager" EQF Level 4 and 5 and "care farm social/health educator", EQF Level 5 and 6. The online e-learning platform will be conceived and released as user friendly, interactive and available OER free of charge. The project thus plans to create a dual training opportunity both for practical and virtual fruition, in this way making possible to plan one’s training course via Internet according to the amount of time available for users and implementing the theoretical course with a practical experience at a social farm among those listed as case studies. At the same time, participants can follow interactive online programmes with the opportunity to interact with professors and other students in the selected course, by social networks, blogs and forum walls, moderated by the CARE-T-FARMS portal. This method thus makes possible to promote the choice of timing, procedures and customised contents, but without socially isolating the users, which is often a limitation and risk of Internet. The results of the project can thus enable the best impact at European level for social agriculture and care farms networking, connecting different experiences and listing the most valuable case studies, followed so far in different countries by several pioneers in social farm educational activities. This will create: i) new opportunities for agricultural entrepreneurs, ii)capitalisation of human resources at risk getting lost in the difficulties of the job market, iii) full collaboration between the world of agriculture , education and social/health services, with greater involvement and benefits of persons with mental disorders and social problems and their families, iv) attractiveness of social farm methodologies targeted to children, youngsters and adults with special needs due to mental disorders and social troubles, v) circularity of experiences on a European level, using linguistic and technological resources as a tool for conveying knowledge and acquiring training experiences, vi) convergence of themes, contents and methods that make it possible to use common evaluation parameters of the educational paths of “social farm experts” on a transnational level, according to the EQF European Union recommendation. Aiming at realizing this programme, it is foreseen to develop with the Modules available online a virtual library of social farm case studies, a social farm activities and competencies dictionary, training gym interactive tools with self-evaluation tests, tutorial for the training system. The project will rely on various instruments to spread the results achieved, through: i) piloting and monitoring tests performed in all the target countries; ii) participation at school tourism trade exhibitions; iii) social networks presenting the multilingual training products; iv) involvement of education and health institutions; v) online management of the system through a portal for offline/online instruction using the training materials available on the website; vi) a Social Agriculture European Network, in collaboration with farmers associations and social and health services.
The idea of social agriculture is based on the multifunctional approach to rural development. It is connected with an educational approach, which assumes that combining agriculture and social services on the local level can give benefits in the agriculture, education, health and labor market. This project intended to create a bridge in which training programmes simultaneously offer opportunities to farmers and those who can become partners of the evolution of social agriculture aiming at a real service for schools, families social care and health services. The purpose of the project was to create training materials and platform that give people the skills to increase the uptake of social farming across Europe. Starting from a “learning-by-doing” methodology, typical of the traditional farmers’ heritage, the special programmes were elaborated (programmes based on soft skills, addressed to customers with special needs, and hard skills, such as “gardening and horticulture”, “management of farm animals”, specially trained courtyard animals, “traditional food making” like cheese and bread with traditional recipes, “use of ecologic materials for buildings”, like wood, clay, and straw, “knowledge, cultivation and propagation of herbs for health and food purpose"). All of these training materials, depending on a State-of-the-Art and Training Needs Analysis, performed by the partners in the preparatory phase, were elaborated, discussed, shared, adapted, tested and evaluated. The teaching materials, implemented with 15 case studies (from Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Turkey) are available from an online e-learning platform. The teaching materials, based on managing social agriculture and care farm, were listed according to different target users and level of difficulty and competence, and were based on triad: "care farm tutor", "care farm manager" and "care farm social/health educator". The "Care Farm Tutor" module aimed at farmers, farm workers and secondary school students. It aims to give a basic understanding to learners of the day-to-day activities associated with tutoring people on-farm activities in a social or care farm setting. This module corresponds to EQF level 3/4. The "Care Farm Manager" module is directed towards farmers who have experience in hosting people on their farms and in being part of teaching activities. It gives these farmers a detailed understanding of planning care fam activities on their farms, with a strong focus on suitability and accessibility for all participants. This module corresponds to EQF level 4/5. The "Care Farm Social/Health Educator" module is designed for social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists who have experience in therapeutic help and assistance. This module provides specialist knowledge on planning social or care farm courses as an extra-clinical treatment or intervention. This level is in line with EQF level 5/6. Those three modules with the Summary State-of-the-Art Report, 15 case studies, keywords, bibliography, and self-evaluation test constitute an e-learning platform which was conceived and released as user-friendly, interactive and OER free of charge. The training course is available in six languages (English, Italian, French, Polish, Spanish, and Turkish) The results of the project can thus enable the best impact at European level for social agriculture and connecting different experiences and listing the most valuable case studies. The project creates new opportunities for agricultural entrepreneurs, and capitalise the human resources at risk getting lost in the difficulties of the job market. The teaching materials constituted the full collaboration between the world of agriculture, education and social/health services, with greater involvement and benefits of persons with mental disorders and social problems and their families and gives attractiveness of social farm methodologies targeted to children, youngsters and adults with special needs due to mental disorders and social troubles. The training platform enables circularity of experiences at European level, using linguistic and technological resources as a tool for conveying knowledge and acquiring training experiences, and convergence of themes, contents, and methods that make it possible to use common evaluation parameters of the educational paths of “social farm experts” on a transnational level, according to the EQF recommendation. The project relies on various instruments to spread the results achieved through piloting and monitoring tests performed in all the target countries; participation in events and workshops; social networks presenting the multilingual training products; involvement of education and health institutions, and farmers associations; online management of the system through a portal using the training materials available on the website.