Animal Assisted Education for Disabled Students

Applying for the project was the best way to achieve the promotion and improvement of the physical and mental health of the male and female students attending the educational units. Alternative treatment methods may benefit the participants and their recipients and deal with certain problems faced by children who are either diagnosed on the autism spectrum, or with attention deficit disorder, or with behavioral problems and other psychiatric conditions.

The goals are to create opportunities for students to practice and improve their motor, social and communication skills through animal assisted therapy such as hippotherapy. Therefore, by applying different approaches depending on the animal that each country will use (horse, dog, dolphin), a training program and a specialized educational tool are created, an original manual of teaching strategies through the creation of the book with the lesson plans of the three countries.

After the signing of the Small Scale Partnerships project contract between our school E.E.E.K. Katerinis and the National Authority of IKY in April 2022, the first online meeting was planned and held with the partners Virtual Meeting Partners, with the partners Scoala Primara Conil from Romania and Pendik Namik Kemal Ilkokulu from Turkey. It was at this meeting that the first acquaintance took place.In June, the 2nd Virtual Meeting Partners was held with the partners. In September, planning was done for the first mobility week that would take place in Greece. In November, the mobility week took place from 7-11/11/2022. On 12-16/12/2022, the Virtual Meeting was held, with the Istanbul school, Pendik Namik Kemal Ilkokulu, as the organizer. Mobility week was held in Romania on 20-24/03/2023 and on 22-26/05/2023. On 23-27/10/2023 the final Virtual Meeting between the three partners took place.

Each of the schools involved in this project created their own lesson plans based on activities related to assisted animal therapy for students with special educational needs. A Diffusion and Information Conference was organized for both the educational community and the local community on 9/11/2022. Also, a Program website was created by the school in Romania. The final recipients and beneficiaries are the students who participated in the program as well as the teachers who were involved in making the project happen.