POST EDITED: 2-day Transnational Peer Review Event PROFARM Tennental Finished

The PROFARM peer review event on Monday and Tuesday 13-14 March 2017, just finished and was very succesful. Topics of discussion were:

• The Case Manager Profile – ‘An easy role to define , but difficult to play’
• The Tool for the assessment of the Social Farms
• Guidelines for the establishment of Social Farming networks
• Memorandum of Understanding

The Case Manager : ‘An easy role to define , but difficult to play’

Altheo Valentini: ‘In Italy it’s a good moment for providing courses and information about case management. We don’t have a profiles of case management, it’s not an institutional function. We have activated 4-6 networks, and all representatives were teachers. So we don’t really know the concept of a case manager and case management.  We get feedback from teacher who say that there is not enough of a pedagogical structure and approach towards the young person…’

Idske of  Social Farm De Huppe: I started as a teacher, and started on school with children aged 10-12 years. After that I started as social worker and teacher on a farm. I teach children who are not able to be at school, because classes are to big, they become frustrated. Because social workers say you have to do education and do something. And than they can come to the farm. I teach the basics around wood crafting, animal care, working on the farm land. The ultimate goal is to go back to school. Our target group is 11-18 years. It’s not a formal pathway to school. But it’s sort of formalized to arrange the return to school. They stay temporarily (but temporarily means around 3 to 4 years). The group of children I work with is around the size of 6 children. It’s all 1-to-1 coaching. I am a teacher and case manager. I am standing in the middle. I organize everything around my children.

Antonella: We have a similar situation in Italy. Children don’t want to go to school, because they are frustrated. So they stay 2 or 3 days in school and the other days they are in the community/farm. In this way they become more motivated and become more at ease and they function better. We also have project around sailing, and now we want to open a new community, in a social farm concept. But there is not a lot experience. Age of children we teach is 14-20 years. They stay in one class for 2-3 years. At  14 they don’t want to go to school usually anymore…  The Primary school is till 10 years, than 2 years secondary school, at 14 they do 2 years of upper secondary school (middle school)…

Anton Kiewiet of De Groenewelle: Case management works different in formal education. If You are a student, there is a mentor who is responsible for the students. The mentor intervenes and monitors the students. In this way he takes care of students in school sounds very easy

Monique Oehlers: I was case manager of the Youth Department at the municipality Purmerend. We worked a lot with young people with disability (adhd, borderline, etc.). I was sort of the spider in the web, and stayed in touch with social service providers, family, doctors, etc.. That was case management for me. And now I have a different age group: from 18 till 65. Now it’s mostly people who are socially not adapted, and have addictions, multi-problems and trying to find their way back to society. I work with 7 people who are on welfare and they are my ambassadors and they guide other people on welfare who are even more further away from society. We work from a community center and try to build a bridge between them and the society. It’s a sort of case management plus. In the Netherlands if you don’t have the knowledge you use other expertise

Paul Kitchen: In Scotland, my role has been a provider of education (forma land informal learning). The case manager recruits and decides on the processes and pathways of development. They work with ages of 15-65 with whole spectrum of disabilities (adhd, asperges, etc.) My role was to elaborate with the case manager of what we could deliver. It was as an institution to deliver something which means something for those young people. We would let them take experience on the formal agricultural school, an agricultural informal farm. We can do whatever the case manager requests. We can provide various informal and formal forms of education, I guess it’s pretty tailor made.

Pieter van Schie (@Pietervschie): Scotland is very interesting because they have 2 extra QF levels ( 1 and 2), below the European Qualification Framework (EQF), to acknowledge the young people with disabilities, and fewer opportunities with certifications under the level 1 of the EQF… The young person has to attend a minimum time to engage on the course to get certified (e.g. a certificate of work readiness, employability award). You are preparing them to move them up and acknowledge their skills

Paul Kitchen: In Scotland every area has an agricultural school, and these schools have their own farms (sometimes connected to a separate activity, e.g. a golf course). The money comes through the referring organization. The case managers are sometimes from the local authority or sometimes from charities who are set up to help young people with disability. There is a very close contact between us and the case manager.  S/he, the case manager, is working with all the service providers.

Gerhard : When we entered the project we thought about a classical approach… There is one function which is not called case manager, but is close to a welfare organization (The job center). They finance a 3-year path (from 18 till 21) and they provide a year of orientation. They have normally some workshops (e.g. a bakery, farm, etc. ). After the first year they decide what to do to and where to go, and they have an obligation to make a competence analysis. What is already there and what to develop fort he next few years. After 3 years there is a next decision, to go into the first labour market… this can be done by work placement or internship or apprenticeship. If that is not possible, they stay in sheltered workshops.  The social worker starts as of from the school (from 18 years on). All the clients are classical disabled persons and multiple problems

To clarify: My impression is that in Netherlands and Germany there is already some structure in the system regarding case management. In Italy it is a growing situation around case management. In the UK/Scotland it looks very similar

Soon more news about the feedback the PROFARM peer reviewers. See also our tweet feed and our website. The Dutch partners are agricultural school De Groenwelle and St. Dutch Foundation of Innovation Welfare 2 Work.