N5_AUGUST | 2014
Welcome to the HORGANIC newsletter! Here you have the fifth HORGANIC newsletter. This time we would like to explain you how we are checking the right development of the pilot gardening experiences that are being developing in Spain, Slovenia and Germany. Moreover, we will make an overview of the exercises developed by the experts on gardening and on the action methods to improve social skills and the learning process. Finally, we are introducing you the recovery process philosophy, followed by INTRAS and OZARA to re-integrate people living with mental illness. You cannot miss it! Enjoy the read. The Horganic TEAM
This project has been funded with support of the Lifelong Learning Programme, Grundtvig sub-programme, from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein
STRICT QUALITY CONTROL OF THE PILOT EXPERIENCES IN SPAIN, SLOVENIA AND GERMANY Currently, INTRAS, OZARA and CJD are implementing the HORGANIC training course for adults living with mental illness in their respective countries. After each training session a report is completed explaining the strong and weak points of each session, problems encountered, etc. so the final manual will be improved using the valuable feedback of these three pilot experiences. Moreover, the experts that developed the training manual are going to visit all the pilot courses to check that everything is running as expected and that the trainers are following the curriculum. One of these visits took place on 24th July in Spain. Dr. Galabina Tarashoeva, expert in action methods and psychodrama visited the two groups that are being trained in the province of Zamora (in the villages of Toro and Coreses). The group was split in two smaller ones for the experiential learning part of the course to give a more personalized service to the users, adapted to their specific needs. Dr. Tarashoeva gave valuable advises to the trainers and detected some things that can be done in a better way, so her contribution was really useful and will help to improve the results achieved. The day ended with a master class by Dr. Tarashoeva to INTRAS staff to disseminate the advantages of using psychodrama to train people living with mental health illness. Supervisory visits to Germany and Slovenia are foreseen for September and October, as well as the supervision related to the technical part of the HORGANIC course.
HORGANIC GARDENING SESSIONS, HOW DO THEY LOOK LIKE? 81 units for trainers and participants combining theoretical and practical knowledge in gardening have been developed by the gardeners of CJD Frechen in Germany. The units are giving useful background information on how to perform the units, hints regarding weather conditions and further information which might be interesting, as receipts for the harvested vegetables or historical events connected to the vegetables. Some of the units vary in their length as it might occur that there are delays in performing the units and this shall avoid an overall delay of the gardening course. Furthermore, there are “joker units�, which are not connected to any weather conditions and can be switched to any time of the course. Some of the units contain little pictures for further explanation or pictures which need to be labeled or a text you have to fill in on your own. The units for the trainers include next to the structure of the day and background information some hints where to put the focus on, e.g. which tasks contain the risk of injuries. The issues dealt include vary topics of gardening, e.g. as the basics in botany, the occupational safety, tools in gardening, the different kinds of seeds and garden mould, how to build a birds nest box or a potato crate, the promotion of beneficiary animals and how to detect plants diseases. It furthermore goes through a vary of vegetables to be sowed, planted, pricked out, harvested and how to prepare them to eat. The units therefore combine several practical exercises who promote skills e.g. in constructing and working with a hammer and a saw on one hand as well as working very cautious with little plants which are easy to damage on the other hand.
During the course two excursions will take place to change the venue from the units in the own area to the gardening outside the organization, giving the possibility to talk to further professional gardeners and compare their work with the work done within the course.
HOW TO USE ACTION METHODS TO IMPROVE SOCIAL SKILLS “With love and respect to the person!” – this is the short answer. This is the exact answer that Zerka Moreno, the co-creator of Psychodrama likes to give when you ask her “what are the qualities needed to become a good psychodramatist?” First of all the trainers/group leaders have to invest time and work, together with the group members, to build a safe space for sharing feelings and opening difficult topics. After that, constant attention is needed to deeper the trust of the group members towards the team, the group and the method. The trainers have to show the group members that everything they need to share is important and meaningful. This interest they have to express not only verbal but also with own body language, giving time for listening them, and looking for sharing similar experiences from other participants. This will make the person who shares his/her feelings valued, respected and not alone. Here you have two recent examples from my practice as a supervisor of the HORGANIC experiential learning methodology: 1. One of the participants in a group, a woman, working as a cleaner, explained that when she had to sweep the floor some of her workmates shouted her not to do it. She was not happy with that situation and the group explained her how she could act the next time that she had to face the situation. This was good support on behaviour level – giving advices. But she looked closed in herself. I tried to be on her place and to see what I felt. In her role I felt that “in my working place nobody respect me and neither my efforts to do well my job. Here in this group the others are clever than me, and advise me. But nobody understands me, and there is not much interest of my feelings”. After asking permission from her, I did a short intervention with doubling her feelings. She confirmed that she felt not respected by these workmates, even when she is cleaning for them, to make them feel comfortable in the work place. She seems to be very touched by my doubling. During my doubling I touch her shoulder and later on her trainers told me, that she for first time allows somebody to touch her physically. The other group members were impressed of her sharing and told her that they will not allow anybody to shout her when she is doing her job. This was real support and she felt it.
2. In another group, during the game for self-evaluation own skills, when the task was to evaluate own skills as a leader, a man share that he is not good leader, because when he asked the others to water the plants, nobody do it. I asked permission and entered in the group circle for a short intervention. I asked him how he felt in this moment. After his sharing I asked the others, if there is somebody who felt in similar way. Almost all of them confirmed. I asked them if next time he asked them to do something in the garden what they are going to do, and why. All of them told they will do what he asks, because he is good in gardening and good person. The face of this parson became shining – he felt valued and respected. And now, you, who are reading this page, please try to imagine that you are this woman or this man, how would you feel after opening in front of the group? Then you will have the long answer.
KNOWING A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT THE RECOVERY APPROACH For starters, let’s first define what “recovery approach” is – it is an approach towards working with people with mental health problems and drug addicts that encourages an individual’s potential for recovery. The recovery approach includes the whole process and not only the end result (»the recovery«). The whole process can include the development of hope, positive self-awareness and development of self-esteem, support interpersonal relationships, empowerment, social inclusion and the acquaintance of different skills that help to cope with everyday life and it encourages seeking for a meaning of life. The beginnings of the recovery approach go along with the deinstitutionalisation and the beginnings of community care for people with mental health disorders. According to different legal frameworks in the field of mental health, the recovery approach sometimes needs to also be adapted. In Slovenia the model of community care is in its infancy, therefore implementation of the recovery approach is also limited. In the HORGANIC pilot project psychodrama contributes the biggest share to implementing the recovery approach, through which we improve the different skills of the participants. Psychodrama is a psychotherapeutic method that improves spontaneity and creativity through empathising with different situations. Its main aim is to enable a person to face and overcome his/her own doubts and distress through group work. It helps a person to put aside the mask they are wearing. This is how we try to help people to become reintegrated within the usual social environments and lifestyles they had before illness. The Slovenian HORGANIC pilot group is very heterogeneous: there are men and women, younger and older, with different grades of mental underdevelopment and different mental health diseases. All of the participants are coping with related problems throughout their lives; therefore the recovery approach does not have the same effect as with people with mental health diseases. When it comes to people with mental health problems, we try to support them through the recovery approach to become reintegrated in the lifestyle they had before the illness. Many of our pilot group participants have had issues since childhood, therefore the recovery approach can only support the improvement of the life quality, widen their social networks, and to get involved into activities they enjoy. One of the bigger challenges we face is very low self-esteem and low sense of self-worth. That is mainly why they avoid being up-front. But, at the same time we have observed that praise has very positive effects on the participants. Usually praise itself is not enough as is needs to be supported with arguments about what the participant did well, where he/she improved etc. And with great delight we have come to the conclusion that augmented praise encourages the participants to try new activities they didn’t know before and to step forward with products and verbal comments. We suppose the participants are more ready to become exposed to situations and environments they are not that familiar with. We mainly support the participants’ acquaintances with soft skills through the recovery approach; and consequently improve their qualities of life. At the end of each session we namely sum up what we were working on and how this new skill can be put into use in everyday life. We also encourage the participants to use their newly acquired skills.
This project has been funded with support of the Lifelong Learning Programme, Grundtvig subprogramme, from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Contact: Laura MartĂnez proyectos2@intras.es You will find updated information about HORGANIC project in http://horganic.intras.es Horganic