Professional development of WDSF volunteers in the adult learning sector.
Project Duration: 24month – 01.09.2023. – 31.08.2025.
Promoting the work of assistance dogs in partnership between WDSF and Os’mose
Our aim is to establish a long-term collaboration, an internationally standardised assistance dog training programme and its application with different types and aged groups in addition to professionals. In order to do this, reaching the target groups and raising their awareness of the benefits of applying assistance dogs is also crutial. As a result, inclusion of the targeted groups could be reached and the modernization of education. WDSF as coordinator and Os’mose as partner will lay the foundations for this project.
19-22-03-2024. Study tour in Belgium
Our foundation’s trainers studied the Belgian partner’s method, which involves establishing a network of foster parents for dogs and training assistance dogs. The dogs are trained together with the foster parents until they are handed over to the client. This allows the foster parents to be in direct contact with the person for whom the dog is being trained. This is a great motivation for their self-sacrificing work and also makes the program successful.
May 14-16, 2025 Study tour in Hungary
The next stage of our application was a visit from one of our Belgian partners’ trainers. We demonstrated the work of facility dogs and how we use them to introduce people of all ages to the work of assistance dogs. A dog that assists a family raising a child with a physical or hearing impairment or an autistic child, or an autistic or depressed adult, is trained to pay attention to its owner and help only them. This can be demonstrated in schools and kindergartens, but it is a much greater experience for children to experience these assistance activities for themselves. This is precisely what we train our institutional assistance dogs to do, so that we can not only demonstrate the tasks of an assistance dog, but also show the many possibilities of four-legged assistance in a direct way, even with strangers. Our foundation has named these sessions “ROF” (Rendkívüli Osztályfőnöki, or “Special Head Teacher”) lessons, and we are also preparing a handbook, which we will publish at the end of the project. In the meantime, here are a few pictures taken during the demonstration sessions with the vocational school students of the Pető Institute for Conductive Education Public Benefit Foundation, the Kecskemét EGYMI – Headquarters 2nd grade class, and the @Szent Imre Catholic Elementary School 8th grade class. We would like to thank Kecskeméti TV for reporting on this in their KTV News and Highlights programs, which can be found in our previous posts and on our website. Bambi, assistance dog, and his owners, József Bratkó Privát and Ágota Földesi Bratkóné, Móni Korsós, Enikő Szokolné, Erika Kutasi, Nátán, Rozi, Ében, Bátor, and Bambika, our loyal four-legged friends, took part in the event.
