"The European Association of Motor Disabled People (AEHM) is an association under the 1901 French Law which has six centers for the support of people with motor and multi-handicap disabilities. Created in 1964 at the initiative of a small group of parents of children with cerebral palsy (BMI), it now has a little over 600 residents for around the same number of employees. People accompanied by AEHM services, who are very vulnerable due to their physical ailments, are often declared ""unable to work"" and therefore even more marginalized. In 2017, a UN report alerted France to the way in which support for people with disabilities is provided, which mainly takes the form of care in specialized institutions and does not allow people to be socially included. The AEHM (which had just renovated its associative project in order to focus on the needs of the people received and on the skills of the professionals), concerned by this injunction, decided to examine in a more concrete way the question of the inclusion through innovation of support systems. It is in this context that the CUP-E+ project (Citizenship, social utility and participation of people with disabilities in Europe) is taking place.The objective of this project is to identify and promote the skills of these people who are only asking to participate in civic life. This recognition of skills, which is carried out with a view to social utility, can be achieved by the construction of concrete tools. Through the partnership between three countries (France, Spain and Italy) with very different social and cultural models, and by involving university partners and field structures, the CUP-E+ project aims to achieve two tangible results:The construction of a tool to identify skills in a situation of disability and an adapted skills reference framework. In addition, there are intangible results such as increasing the self-esteem of people with disabilities and strengthening the skills of professionals. These tools will be achieved through the joint reflection of the partners on the issue of the skills of people with motor disabilities. To avoid methodological pitfalls and to focus on this under-exploited field of research, strategic partners will rely on existing guides and tools (AEFA Guide, Different/competent documentation, Participatory ICT Results, etc.). Four transnational meetings are planned over two years to work together intensively and collegially on the issues raised and to share observations made in the field. Three learning activities are organized to enable professionals and people with disabilities to participate in workshops, exchanges, visits and actively contribute to the construction of tools that directly concern them. The activities allow the direct participation of 160 people from all structures (teachers and university students, professionals from the socio-medical sector, people with disabilities). The impacts of the project, through the creation of tools, are reflected both on the direct participants in the project activities and on the indirect beneficiaries (professionals, supported persons, students): increase in knowledge, identification/valorization and/or reinforcement of skills. In the long term, the results produced will be transformed into awareness-raising and training tools on a larger scale. The reflection undertaken will serve as a basis for the re-evaluation of support measures: the enhancement of the skills of all people must be integrated and taken into consideration when assessing needs, care, services and orientations.The CUP-E+ project lays the foundations for a reflection that, if it has already begun on other populations, focuses on the citizen participation of the most vulnerable people."

The Social Farming (SF) movement has developed substantially over the last decades in Europe, which means recognising its potential for providing eco-approaches (organic farming) that engage vulnerable individuals (social integration). The concept of SF is not yet present in vocational education and it is not recognised at a government level in many EU countries, however the number of SFs is continuously increasing. SFs and other social institutions will highly benefit from the Revitalist social farming training, especially because it includes an economic viability module and an innovative method called Practical Skills Therapeutic Education (PSTE).Revitalist has taken further the concept of Social Farming by elaborating a new curriculum based on a therapeutic method of education (PSTE), by creating and collecting a pool of background materials and by establishing a network of professionals, and this way responding to several EU regional and local policy needs. The target groups of the new curriculum are social farm employees, social and agricultural professionals.The core method PSTE has been tested and validated by one of our project partners (Ruskin Mill Trust) in the UK for over 20 years, providing social direction for young people with learning difficulties. Their results have been proven, recorded by the physical and mental development of their clients. Furthermore, PSTE also opened a window towards the social inclusion of the clients.We believe that Social Farming represents new potential enterprises for the agricultural sector: any land based initiative that wishes to work organically can attract other sources of income by engaging disadvantaged end-users.To bring it all to life, the project involved 7 organisations that contributed and benefited from this project:Hungarian Quality Compost Association (HU) is a professional organization with extensive experience in education, training development, agricultural practices and project management. Revitalist helped increasing their network connections at a national and international levels.Diverzitás Foundation (HU) has a well-established work practice developed with end-users, stable network connection with the stakeholders. The creation of new Revitalist training program, consisting of developing local social farming initiatives, brought extensive new knowledge into the organization.Ruskin Mill (UK), creator of the PSTE method, designed and delivered training program adapted to different multinational demands within the Revitalist project framework. They also tested the potential of PSTE when working with different types of clients.The Municipality of Tiszasas (HU) and WWOOF (HU) are both situated in socially deprived areas of Hungary and have been over the years building the necessary infrastructures to address the end-users needs. Alongside Diversity Foundation, these three organisations guarantee direct access to the target group; their knowledge is essential to keep the Revitalist training program alive and more importantly, work towards the creation of new SFs to significantly improve the life quality of those in need.University of South Bohemia (CZ) is developing training programs in SF, and they contributed to the project with their economic viability knowledge, which is essential to make SFs viable and sustainable in the long run.Agricoltura Capodarco (IT) is one of the oldest examples of SF in Europe, integrating socially disadvantaged people in the community, in an ethical and ecological way. Their participation in the process was therefore essential, as the partner with the greatest knowledge and practical experience in this topic.The main activity of the project is the elaboration of Social farm mentor training curriculum with methodologies, containing 5 modules: 1. PSTE theory and Genius Loci, 2. PSTE practice, the crafts 3. Characteristics of end-users, 4. Economic viability 5. Adaptation to local circumstances. For the understanding of the PSTE method and the operation of SFs, 3 short-term joint staff trainings have been carried out in the project. To support the Social farm mentor training, educational materials and an Open Education Resource was created on the SF topic, as well as an active, supporting online mentor-network interface.We tested all theory and practice described above in two different pilot-trainings where we used the participants’ feedback to improve the outputs.The Social farm mentor training uses a practice-oriented approach that involves learning handcraft activities that promote cognitive development and a sense of personal achievement, focusing always on the specific needs of each learner. We aspire for forgotten craft activities to be sustainably reinstated in the various locations in order to boost local economies, while guaranteeing the passing on of this cultural heritage to future generations.