Exchange with Tuzla
Exchange and co-operation project between Centar Koraci Nade, the Institute for the education of children and adolescents with psychological and physical disabilities, located in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and SpazioAperto, the semi-residential centre for disabled minors, located in San Giovanni in Persiceto, Italy.
THE CENTRES
SpazioAperto
The SpazioAperto day centre is located in San Giovanni in Persiceto, Italy. Operated by the Bologna Local Health Unit and managed by CADIAI, it is a service for minors from 10 to 18 years of age who have medium and serious disabilities. The children attending the Centre (currently 22) alternate their presence (normally 2 or 3 days a week) with attendance at school on the remaining days; the Centre is open throughout the year from Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to 4 PM. The service, with educators, assistants, a pedagogist and child neuropsychiatrist, works to reinforce and where possible, increase the children’s skills.
In recent years, the number of patients that can access the Centre has grown considerably. Several foreign-born children have been inserted, who currently make up twenty percent of the total. This has led to some organizational adjustments (for example, the provision of meals that respect religious dietary laws), but above all has induced us to reflect on what this change means from an educational, rehabilitative, and cultural point of view.
With the aim of increasing the children’s integration and with the idea that opening to the outside could be useful, the Centre took advantage of a recent contact with Educaid (www.educaid.it) to see if these goals could be accomplished by means of an exchange and co-operation project with a centre outside Italy. We then contacted Centar Koraci Nade and made plans for such a project, described below.
Centar “Koraci Nade”
Centar Koraci Nade (“steps of hope”) opened in 1994, and is funded 50% by the Ministry of Social Affairs and 50% by donations and projects. Its patients (newborn to 21 years old) come from all parts of the district, and have various types of disabilities, including motor disability, mental retardation, and behavioural disturbances. The Centre conducts group and individual activities, such as art therapy, music therapy, and dance therapy. It also offers help to parents, teaching them to play an active role in the rehabilitation process.
Institute for the Education of children and adolescents with psycho-physical disabilities
The Institute for the Education of children and adolescents with psycho-physical disabilities hosts 153 children and adolescents (age 6 to 19) with various types and degrees of disabilities: mental retardation, autism, hyperactivity, physical disability, risk of deviance. Depending on the type of disability, activities are conducted in various sectors: professional training, rehabilitation, occupational and work therapy, autism, mental retardation.
OBJECTIVES
Carry out a mutual exchange of different experiences and gradually create a useful collaboration for all parties with real benefits in the various operative contexts. To accomplish these objectives, it is essential to guarantee the continuity of the project by assuming the commitment to develop all areas of collaboration that may emerge during the exchange.
PLANNED ACTIONS
Two phases are planned: in the first, CADIAI’s operators will visit the Tuzla centre; in the second, Bosnian operators will visit Bologna.
1. A team of four CADIAI operators will go to the Tuzla centres from 30 March to 3 April 2009. The schedule will include visits to the two centres as well as joint training sessions in which the organizational characteristics of the various services will be detailed and educational and rehabilitative activities described. The CADIAI operators will present material documenting their experience.
2. A team of operators from Tuzla will come to Bologna in the second half of September 2009 for a series of visits and training sessions similar to those described above. If the operators are interested, they will be offered the possibility of visiting various types of services (CADIAI also manages day and residential services for disabled adults and the elderly, and day centres and local programmes for psychiatric patients and drug addicts) and of receiving information on the Cooperative’s organization and on the social services system in Emilia Romagna.
3. A joint assessment of the project will be conducted at the conclusion of the exchange, so that the collaboration may continue with emphasis given to areas and subjects deemed most important.
EXPECTED RESULTS
With regard to SpazioAperto, it is believed that the experience will provide the following benefits:
- increased expertise thanks to international cooperation;
- improved skills for reception of foreigners;
- insights into different situations and approaches to the problem of disability.
For the Tuzla centres, we believe contact with our services will offer occasions for dialogue and knowledge of different organizational structures and work methods.
CADIAI will bear the organizational costs for both visits. In addition, the “five per thousand” contributions to be received in 2009 will be allocated to this project.
