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SAC XIROI is a private and non-profit
organisation that can be considered, from an administrative point of view,
as a pedagogical farm but because of the variety of services it offers and
its satisfactory results (success in more than 42% of the cases) it can also
be considered as a therapeutical farm.
Many of the residents in SAC XIROI (children and teenagers
between 12 and 18 years old) are sent to us from other institutions that
depend on the Executive Direction of Care of Minors belonging to the
Ministry of Justice of the Generalitat de Catalunya –the autonomous
government of Catalonia- because they have been considered “remote solution
cases”. Our organisation is their last option to become "normal people".
SAC XIROI (located in CASTELLVÍ DE LA MARCA, a very small
rural village) has neither grills nor closed spaces and when new residents
arrive they are therefore so surprised that their intentions of breaking out
disappear rapidly.
By-and-by these children improve their physical and
psychological health; they are able to establish normal relations with
educators, neighbours and other people. They often return to studies and
social life or they begin to work (in July 1999, the occupation rate was of
100%). And what’s more important, they contact their own family again.
If we analyse their clinical and social background and the
reality they had lived in, we can consider this as a miracle, but where is
the key of this success?
THE HORSE AND OTHER ANIMALS:
“That's the difference"
The educational team of our therapeutical farm takes care of
all details concerning the working methods.
For us it is very important to build a close relationship
between the educational team and the children, to show them we trust in them,
and to help them in their way returning to society.
But the key element that distinguishes this institution from
others and which is fundamental in obtaining such good results is the
so-called Animal-Assisted-Therapy (AAT). All educators develop their task
assisted by animals, using them as a "tool of healing".
Usually the relationship between these children and adults
is already very deteriorated. These children do not accept adult's
indications, do not listen to them nor obey... but when they are riding a
horse they feel as if they could maintain a distance from their own reality.
They must pay attention to the educator' instructions in order to get the
obedience from the horse. Up to this moment, they begin a process of change
in their life.
Our therapeutical farm has 8 horses (4 of them born in SAC
XIROI) and the residents take care of them as if they were their best
friends. They establish a very intense and affective relationship with the
horse, one that they are yet not able to establish with other people.
Trini Barceló, director of SAC XIROI, interprets this
process as follows: “When you tell a boy that he must take care on a horse,
you’re telling him that you trust in him, because you are putting the horse
in his hands and he understands that the horse will not have any prejudice
against him and will let the boy take care of him”. When one of these
teenagers has a problem or gets angry with an educator he often goes to talk
to his/her horse.
OTHER
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES
In 1985 Trinidad Barceló visited Berlin, Holland and Bologna
(Italy) where she knew about experiences related with the therapeutical use
of horses with disabled children. She decided to apply the same method with
problematic children and teenagers and so new equipment, without
architectonical barriers, was built: a pedagogical farm in the Alt Penedès
county, 50 km far from Barcelona.
Equitherapy has been used for thousand of years in different
European countries: Sweden, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Italy and also in
France, for example, where they have been using this same method since 1965
as a treatment for people with physical or psychological problems.
In the United States the farm school GREEN CHIMNEYS has been
using this healing technique since 1947 and they have obtained good results
with children with emotional and conduct disorders.
In 1989 during the International Congress of Human-Pet
Relationship (Monaco) the Executive Director, Mr. Samuel Ross, and his wife
Myra were surprised when they saw a video of SAC XIROI, as they discovered a
place where people did similar things as those they were doing in Green
Chimneys.
A child is a small man or woman whom the society has to take
care for in order to make of him/her a “happy” human being possessing the
eternal values of civilisation, which are: to be hardworking, honest, polite,
generous and liable.
Mr & Mrs Ross have visited SAC XIROI twice and then we have
visited the educational programs in New York the same number of times. Our
philosophy is the same, both institutions use therapy assisted by animals as
a method of treatment in order to help people with physical and social
problems.
THE
EDUCATORS
Since the beginning of SAC XIROI in 1986 this institution
has obtained international recognition and the promoters Miquel Gallardo and
Trinidad Barceló have assisted to congresses, seminars and forums in the
United States, France, Denmark, Monaco, Belgium, Switzerland, New Zealand,
Sweden, Holland, Israel and Spain.
They got their vocational training at the Escola de Formació
d’Educadors Especializats (School of specialised educators) in Girona (Spain);
they obtained Graduate and Bachelor degrees of the University of Tarragona;
and they did as well some practices at the University of Barcelona.
In reference to the "Adapted Equitherapy", the educators’
team of SAC XIROI has been schooled at the Handi-Cheval Association (France).
At present we have begun bilateral conversations with the
University of Zaragoza (sciences of the health) and the University of Vic
(Barcelona) in order to begin to give this formation in Spain.
Once a year there is an exchange with other French
therapeutical farms, which has as a result a process of mental opening for
educators as well as for residents, because it helps the children to escape
everyday problems and give them the opportunity to be as other teenagers of
the European Union.
Educators and all other workers of the Farm receive
continuous training. They also attend weekly reunions in order to analyse
the processes and results of the treated cases, as well as to establish new
treatments.
Dealing with teenagers who have problems may be a very
exhausting task and the educators must be very sensitive to be helpful to
all the residents. Statistics demonstrate that the young boys and girls who
live in SAC XIROI have fewer problems than others do. And their
“expectations” of future are very different from those they had before
entering SAC XIROI.
Nowadays we are: 4 bachelors in psychology and pedagogy; 4
graduates in special education & social work; 5 specialists in different
subjects developing functions in especial education and 5 people of services;
and we also have volunteers: 1 psychiatrist; 1 teacher of penitentiary
institutions; 1 school teacher and 1 psychologist.
CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE TREATED POPULATION
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As it is
described by the Psychological Centre of Primary Assistance of the
Hospital de Sant Joan de Deu (Barcelona), the children attended in SAC
XIROI present personality development disorders with psychopathic
tendencies. That means that these children suffer not a slight
personality disturbance but a severe personality disorder, as included
in the mental disorders classification (CDSM IV R, mental disorders
diagnosis criteria accepted by the I.P.A. |
Besides, the level of psycho-social stress surrounding these young people (their
family situation) is extreme or catastrophic, according to the DSM III R
classification.
We must also consider: the serious social conflicts which very often make
them have contact with judicial instances; the difficulties the social
workers have to face when they want to act; the remote possibilities of
obtaining a real and definitive change.
All that forces to adopt special measures of treatment in order to avoid
secondary effects (what it is normally seen in places of high conflict, as
for example prisons. If in such places the many different problems cannot be
solved by ordinary methods, they lead for example to all kind of attacks and
violence).
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SAC
XIROI: DOMESTIC ECOSYSTEM |
The geographical location of SAC XIROI, among mountains and
vineyards, the number of places (only 20) and the contact with animals,
allow children to feel comfortable in this domestic ecosystem, where they
can find the same conditions as in an ordinary family.
Besides, a good relationship to the neighbourhood is
fundamental to get a full integration of the residents: SAC XIROI has a
futsal team that plays with other teams of the area and some boys and girls
participate in the human towers teams in Vilafranca del Penedès.
The children also attend classes at different schools and
they use the public swimming pools of the region. We get normality through
acting normally, which means, children have to relate with other children in
normal circumstances so that they can be able to assume the risks and
benefits of the adult world.
CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE INSTITUTION
The therapeutical centre allows us to obtain optimal results.
According to the CAPIP inform (Centre of Infant Psychiatric
Primary Attention) from 16-04-1997:
1. “The obtained results are better than those one
could expect from patients with these characteristics”.
2. “The ones who need psychiatric treatment, are
visited weekly” There are also reunions with “tutors” of SAC XIROI twice a
month.
3. In some cases, patients
have improved from a scholar point of view as well as from the point of view
of social integration thanks to the task carried out by educators from SAC
XIROI and from CSMIJ.
Therefore we think that we must continue with this
educational-therapeutical line of action.
16 of the 20 residents are attended weekly in the CAPIP from
Vilafranca del Penedès (Barcelona).
In spite of the little recognition on the part of the
medical professionals, there are more and more therapeutical experiences
based on the use of animals as "pedagogical instruments".
When clinical attention is required, the therapeutical
method we offered is AAT (Animal Assisted Therapy). Animals are the best and
most efficient tools of healing if experienced therapists correctly use them.
In some specialised centres in autism it has been observed a
positive reaction from boys and girls because of the presence of dogs, cats,
dolphins or horses, to which they can establish a close relationship. They
seem to want to abandon their isolation while they are with the animal; as
if they recovered a singular communication that they are not able to
maintain with other people... the reaction is the one of surprise, of
happiness and vitality.
Recent medical researches have demonstrated that people who
live together with pets have a better health. Doctor Mr. Pedro Ridruejo,
university professor and director of the Psychiatric Department of the
Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, has recently said
in a Spanish periodical that ANIMALS ARE BORN AS THERAPEUTICAL RESOURCES.
The contact with animals give us emotional stability, the
same way we receive it during infancy from our own mother, and this allows
us to show ourselves as we really are and allows us to know more about our
deep needs.
A study made in the USA during the
70’s assures that 5% of the American clinical and therapeutical centres use
pets with therapeutical purposes. 10 years later P. Arkow talked about 75
programs in protective societies using animals and 44 research projects in
universities. Nowadays there are probably many more.
Psychologists and psychiatrists give us lot of help in order
to obtain recognition for the AAT -Animal Assisted Therapy- as a good method
at a pedagogical and psychological level, and what’s more, as a good method
of social integration.
Mr. Pedro Ridruejo, medicine doctor, published in the
magazine “Quo” (5 -February 1996-) that “animals allow us to destroy
self-defence we have deeply inside and to find our real necessities”.
Animals provide physiological and psychological benefits
such as: stress reduction, security, constancy, intimacy, etc., as well as
social benefits, because they are balsam for the ones who have difficult
lives.
The link established between animals and the human beings is
very strong and often it is deeper than the one between people, as the
animal never questions anything. It accepts us as we are; it is always
available and thanks everything. It will never betray us if we are able not
to ask for more than can be given.
We consider that animals are a "tool" that if it is well
used by expert hands can give unquestionable results. And this makes us to
be awake and look for new methodology. For example, it is not the same to
make rehabilitation exercises in a hospital bed than enjoy the opportunity
of riding a horse and making exercises with a living animal.
For the treatment of psychological problems cats, dogs and
fishes are very useful. Animals from a pedagogical farm are also perfect (goats,
pigs, rabbits, pigeons, ferrets, etc.) but above all, horses because they
allow us to ride them and put our problems into another perspective (we are
"over" everything that annoys us).
We also think that the experience running since 1984 in some
prisons depending of the Ministry of Justice of the autonomous government in
Catalonia is very important:
Thanks an agreement with FUNDACIÓN PURINA, two pairs of
boxers participate in an especial program in the prison's psychiatry. Since
1997 SAC XIROI collaborates in this program.
These psychiatric institutions consider that prisoners who
have engaged this program are less problematic.
THE INTERACTION HORSE – HUMAN
BEING
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“When you
tell a boy that he must take care of a horse, you are telling him that
you trust in him” |
We must insist on the idea that the horse is perfect. You
cannot ride a more obedient, loyal animal. When you ride you feel the
perfect combination between pleasure and responsibility.
Horses can be:
a. A FRIEND IN A "POSITIVE" RELATIONSHIP: The
communication with the horse admits no simulation, nor ambiguity. Animals do
not understand but love, truth and all what they give they do it without
conditions. They are not influenced by states of mood and they are always
available.
b. OBJECTS OF AFFECTION: Certain animals like a dog,
cats, horses, etc. give and look for affection. During our 12 years of
existence we have been able to see 4 times the birth of horses and this is a
fantastic experience for residents as the link established with the new-born
allows them to think they are growing together.
c. PEACE AND QUIETNESS: The presence of a docile
horse is an important factor to get peaceful moments. It is a big animal
that transmits security and even children who had been object of aggressions
from adults will accept this animal after a moment of panic.
d. A VALUABLE OBJECT: Very often, residents consider
the horse as their own property. They also consider that the animal needs
them, and this is fantastic because it allows them to feel very important.
We try to add to this feeling another concept that is as necessary as their
self-confidence we are talking about sharing. It is necessary to transmit
this idea because in real life love can be shared among many people.
Everyone experiences it as a personal feeling, but at the same time others
share it. Like the love a mother gives to all her children.
e. OBJECT OF CONTROL: The residents need to learn to
control themselves and by means of a horse this lesson is easier. If they
are able to control a horse (which is not a part of them) they will be able
to control their own feelings and if they can save obstacles or difficult
paths while riding the horse they are also prepared to solve difficulties in
life.
f. CONTACT WITH NATURE: The location of SAC XIROI
is perfect to allow teachers and residents to ride whenever they want and at
the same time allows them to feel free and safe from the hostile world.
g. SOURCE OF ATTENTIONS: The residents must take
care of horses. They feed them and try to give them all what they need in
order to make them strong, docile and healthy animals. This reinforces the
sense of participation and responsibility.
h. SOCIAL CONTACTS: The horses allow SAC XIROI
interact with the activities taking place in the neighbourhood. On the one
hand residents go to the activities related with horses (fairs and folk
festivals) and on the other some people with especial needs visit our centre
and make their first contact with equitherapy.
i. COMPANY: All the residents visit frequently
their animal (horse, donkey, pony...) when they feel alone or when they have
to take care of it or when teachers need to pay attention to other
residents. Loneliness does not exist in this farm, unless you are looking
for it.
j. THE HORSE: SOURCE OF BONDS AND INDEPENDENCE. In
our project, the horse allows the establishment of a link among residents
and educators or other adults in SAC XIROI. The educator team focuses all
their efforts in youngsters, but animals are the centres of every programmed
task because they give another sense to their life and give a feeling of
utility.
All the characteristics mentioned above, give our residents
a structured background and allow them to acquire convenient habits that
will permit them to enter real life with a perspective different from the
one they had before living in the therapeutical farm.
There is a subjective difference between HIPOTHERAPY and
EQUITHERAPY. The first word indicates the exercises while riding, whereas
EQUITHERAPY is not only riding a horse, but also the treatment you can give
anyone with the help of a horse.
WORK
IN VALUES
In order to facilitate their return to society, we teach
children and teenagers a series of values.
1. Overcoming spirit. It is necessary to provide
them with one that makes them feel stimulated and open to new things and
ideas. Personal satisfaction and the idea of a well-done work is the basis
of our character.
2. Honesty: A person that acts according to the
rules is appreciated and this makes this human being self-confident.
3. Neatness: If we are tidy and we look tidy we give
the impression of responsibility. This is very important when we look for a
job or when we try to impress others. Our body and the way we are dressed
can project a positive image of ourselves, so we try to transmit that
certain attitudes (smoking, drinking without control) or some clothes and
complements (pendant, earrings...) have to be avoided.
4. Capacity of communication: Our residents come
from atmospheres where interaction with others is not valued, so we have to
teach them all kinds of communication possibilities so that they can feel
comfortable in any place.
5. Self-esteem and happiness: We want people able to
surpass adversity, which is the only way to forget negative experiences and
to feel comfortable with future.
6. Generosity, solidarity and justice: We try to
teach respect for others and we want them to learn that they must help each
other. We are all the same and there exist no differences because of colour,
sex, age...
7. To root: It is important to transmit our
residents that we must do the effort of feeling comfortable in the place we
live and work. Our residents usually come from different places but if they
learn to love the country they live in they are learning to be happy
wherever they want to li-1986 Montpeller (F) 1t Meeting European
City Farms Pedagògiques France)
Trini Barceló & Miquel Gallardo
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