Infants at risk and children with neurodevelopmental delay, minor neurological dysfunction and developmental coordination disorder (5-10% of the children - Roberto González Salinas, 2013) can benefit from an early (rehabilitation) intervention/therapy. Early identification by primary care providers of developmental delays leads to early referral for evaluation and treatment. One of these interventions is the psycho-motorics one.Psychomotor education (psycho-motorics) is a pedagogic and therapeutic approach to support and aid an individual’s personal development. It is based on a holistic view of human beings that considers each individual as a unity of physical, emotional and cognitive actualities, which interact with each other and the surrounding social environment. Essentially, the method is psychotherapeutic in nature and origin. The deployment of psychomotricity by professionals was not as clearly defined as was the case for other disciplines such as physiotherapy and physical activity, and there was confusion as to which terminology was best used to describe it, as it could be seen as a discipline (motion science), as a technique (psychomotor practice) or as a synonym of bodily activity (psychomotor ability). Psychomotor education/training can exert an influence on affective, psychomotor, and cognitive areas, but it must be taken into account that affective and psychomotor areas tend to take a back seat after the end of preschool, when intellectual learning (with cognitive goals) occupies most of the school day.While the above clearly demonstrates the positive therapeutic effects, across Balkan countries and Turkey, there is an acute lack of such psycho-motorics therapy experts due to training being extremely expensive (ranging from a few 1000 euros to over 10000 euros) and being based on licensed practices. This lack of experts has an immediate impact on the number of parents and care givers who are left without any support, or have to rely on expensive psycho-motorics based experts who base themselves on “licensed spin-offs” (e.g. experts applying the Aucouturier Psychomotor Practice (APP)).Rehabilitation specialists eliminate the psychological element, which is the most important in psycho-motorics. For this particular reason the standard-trained rehabilitators often fail to find their position and meaning in terms of the way they were trained and its application.The project aims to provide a psycho-motorics training, ECVET compliant, for trainers to ensure that every (aspiring) physiotherapists, ergotherapists, psychologists, psychotherapists and pedagogue will be able to support the mental, motor, psychosocial, emotional, speech and language development of children with developmental delay. By ensuring an increasing number of psycho-motorics therapy experts, psycho-motorics expertise will be aggregated and taught across Balkan countries and Turkey. It will do so without being in conflict with any of the “licensed spin-offs” such as APP.Based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) numbers with regards to disability, about 1 in 50 children has a disability and this percentage only increased over the years. This means that in Bulgaria alone minimum 20000 children (on a total of 1 million children, 2018 figure) will be able to benefit from such psycho-motorics therapy. In Turkey this would amass to minimum 400000 children (on a total of 20 million children, 2019 figure). The potential impact of the project is therefore huge, and will offer a unique therapy training, using mobile and online technologies.IMPORTANT: Infants at risk and children with neurodevelopmental delay, minor neurological dysfunction and developmental coordination disorder will be included whereas children with a diagnose such as cerebral palsy, down syndrome, muscular dystrophia, brachial plexus palsy, spina bifida and neurometabolic diseases will be excluded.Target groups:-Physiotherapists-Ergotherapists-Psychologists-Psychotherapists-Pedagogues-Students of above disciplinesBeneficiaries of the improved provision of psychomotoric therapeutic services:-Infants at risk and children with neurodevelopmental delay, minor neurological dysfunction and developmental coordination disorder-Children with normal development (here psychomotor aims to develop the mental, motor, cognitive, etc. development)-Children with severe mental illness (generalized disorders, cognitive impairments, etc.)-Children with learning disabilities (dyslexia, dyspraxia, etc.)-Children with emotional and behavioural disorders -Family and/or caregiver of affected childrenIntellectual outputs that will be developed to cover the above mentioned learning gap (in English, Bulgarian and Turkish languages):-IO1: ECVET compliant PSYCHOMOTORTRAINING curriculum and course material-IO2: Digital compendium of didactic training videos

"The core concept of this project is to establish support service, to train carers and raise awareness towards elder maltreatment. The elder maltreatment is pervasive in all countries in the European Region. It is a growing concern, and estimates suggest that at least 4 million people experience elder maltreatment in any one year in the EU Region. The full scale of the problem is not properly understood, but it has far-reaching consequences for the mental and physical well-being of tens of millions of older people and, if left unchecked, may result in their premature death. Studies show that older people with dementia and with a disability that results in increased dependence on caregivers increases the risk of elder maltreatment.Key facts:•The European Region has a rapidly ageing population.•One third of the population of the European Region will be 60 years and older in 2050.•Many more older women than older men are in poverty.•The prevalence of elder maltreatment in the community is high (about 3%) and may be as high as 25% for older people with high support needs.Perpetration is most often carried out by caregivers who are partners, offspring or other relatives, although professional health and care workers and visitors can also be perpetrators in institutions or at home. Perpetrators are more likely to have mental health problems, especially depression or a history of violence, and may suffer from substance misuse, especially alcohol abuse.Why is elder maltreatment a health and social problem?•Humanitarian – it causes great suffering to individuals or groups within a society.•Functional – it threatens the fabric of society.•Cost – it drains resources and requires societal investment.•Social justice – some older people are vulnerable and their rights should be protected.•Social norms – regarding behaviour and expectations.•Prevalence – overall, many people suffer from elder maltreatment, and special services and programmes are needed.•Burden – a cause of premature death and disability.•Response – the health and care sectors are in the front line for prevention, detection and rehabilitation.The prevalence increases among people with disabilities, cognitive impairment and dependence.To combat this phenomenon, our project aims to establish a support service framework, as well as train carers on how to recognise such maltreatment, address it and take action, and how to raise awareness in the own community, and this with special attention for those older people with disabilities.Therefore, our project focuses on supporting social workers and carers to:•recognise any elderly maltreatment in their community or among their clientele.•address it•take action•but especially also raising awareness in the communitySocial marketing, mass media awareness raising and education programmes like our project aims to develop will be used to raise awareness of the effects of maltreatment and to promote a healthy ageing approach to overcome negative stereotyping. Engaging older people in these processes will be very important.Based on the above, the project will develop and approbate the following intellectual outputs:IO1: ECVET based training curriculum and training course on ""Recognising elder abuse""IO2: Mobile training app, including good practices databaseIO3: Policy recommendation report for the improvement of governmental support towards prevention of abuse towards elderly peopleTARGET GROUPS•Social workers•Caregivers•Doctors/GPsBENEFICIARIES•Older people (with disabilities)•Family of older people•Social servicesThe partnership is composed by:P1: Local municipality from Rodopi region (among vulnerable in terms of abuse towards elderly) in BulgariaP2: National association of professionals working with elderly people and those with disabilities all over BulgariaP3: Leading clinical psychological support unit from another vulnerable region of Sliven, BulgariaP4: Inclusion institute who is training social service personnel and caregivers from Istanbul, TurkeyP5: VET training provider in the social services field from Belgium"