The Art4Me project connects mental health and art and aims to create a unique opportunity to provide a new platform for sharing knowledge across borders and stakeholders, and a path for better citizen empowerment with or at risk of having mental health problems. A long series of new tools is therefore needed to address mental health. While art and creative expression have been a central element of European culture for millennia, the use of art as a tool for mental health has been poorly mapped and experiences often not shared.
The project aims to:
- Promoting mental health through art therapy to adults with mental health problems.
- Highlight the importance of promoting mental health through the visual arts, with the ultimate goal of improving the lives of millions of Europeans affected by psychiatric disorders.
- The project welcomes patients through the use of a Patient Advisory Board (PAB).
- Examine the situation in each partner country (Denmark, Greece, Italy, Croatia) regarding the use of art therapy and the use of art in promoting mental health.
The area of intervention of the project was mainly the ASL Roma 2 area, but it was aimed at citizens of the entire territory of Rome Capital. The project allowed a broad involvement of users, family members, citizens and institutions. The activities implemented largely represent examples of replicable good practices and an example of civic participation, empowerment and social inclusion of isolated or people in difficulty. The activities are free for participants, open to all citizens, supported by a monitoring system and the use of systems to protect individual privacy.
Good practices in the field of mental health certainly emerged from the project activities, such as the effectiveness restored to people with discomfort through the creation of inclusive socialization spaces. In fact, often in mental health services laboratory activities are exclusive to those with a psychiatric diagnosis and people risk being ghettoized and self-excluding themselves. Supporting not only professionalizing activities with art masters but also socialization with volunteers and non-clinical operators allows for better use of the tool e.g. artistic in favor of rehabilitation and the acquisition of safety by the person. Another good practice is to encourage the meeting of family members of users who come from different contexts: through discussion and networking between people who face the same caregiving difficulties it is certainly an element of help for the whole family and the valorisation of resources .
Rome, November 2023 - RomaSette Avvenire returns to the activities of the Di Liegro Foundation to promote socialization and combat the isolation of patients hospitalized in the Psychiatry, Diagnosis and Treatment Service (SPDC) of the San Filippo Neri Hospital in Rome.
The piece tells of a pilot project, promoted by ASL Roma 1 and financed by the Lazio Region, managed by the Don Luigi Di Liegro Foundation, which uses art therapy to support the mental health of psychiatric patients at the San Filippo Neri hospital. Through music, reading and painting workshops, the project aims to reduce patients' isolation and limit the use of physical restraints. It offers a social path for patients, promoting a non-judgmental environment open to personal expression. The objective is to reduce "mechanical restraint" and improve emergency intervention strategies, especially after the increase in serious psychiatric disorders post-pandemic. In addition to this activity, the Foundation supports the SOSS, an active Orientation and Social Support desk, which becomes a useful tool for the patients' relatives.
Rome, 9 November 2023 - Talking about bullying and social isolation with lower secondary school children. The Don Luigi Di Liegro Foundation launches a series of meetings to promote awareness among young people on the issues of social inclusion and acceptance of diversity. Today the first meeting was held with guest Guglielmo Scilla, aka Willwoosh.
The meeting program is:
- November 9: «One, no one and the group: bullying and exclusion at school». Guest Willwoosh;
- November 16: «Discrimination between prejudices and self-esteem: feeling different». Guest Nothing to Declare;
- November 21: «Affective and friendly relationships: when needs are respected». Guest Willwoosh;
- November 30: «Recognition and management of emotions». Guest Daniela Virgilio.
Rome, October 2023 - Promote socialization and combat the isolation of patients hospitalized in the Psychiatry, Diagnosis and Treatment Service (SPDC) of the San Filippo Neri Hospital in Rome, also providing support to families. This is the primary objective of the pilot project promoted by the ASL Roma 1 Mental Health Department (DSM) financed by the Lazio Region, which entrusted the Don Luigi Di Liegro Foundation with the rehabilitation laboratory activities at the SPDC of San Filippo and the purchase of materials that facilitate the stay of patients in the SPDC departments of the DSM, both at San Filippo Neri and Santo Spirito. The initiative was launched during the month of October.
This is Andrea's story, and how a look changes. We called him “Ugly Andrew”.
There were five of Andrea, among the teenagers of the complex of newly built buildings, where our families had gone to live, converging from many neighborhoods of the capital. There was Andrea the dark-haired, Andrea the blond, Andrea the red-haired (this is what we Romans call those with red hair), Andrea the handsome. And then, of course, ugly Andrea. The nicknames had been given by the eldest of the boys who found themselves in a group in the square, a good boy, after all, but with the exuberance of a bully. Even though bullying, although many of us had already experienced it, was a term and an awareness far from being understood and rejected, in those early 80s.
We therefore called him ugly Andrea. For convenience, let's say so. In order to distinguish the Andreas, when we talked or formed teams to play football in the middle of the street. But if we didn't yet know what bullying was, the derogatory connotation in that "Ugly Andrew" label was clear.
On the other hand, he was "a strange guy": he had tics, sometimes he seemed to talk to himself, other times he tended to throw outbursts of anger when he thought he had suffered a foul in the game, and for some of us the taste was precisely that to provoke him and see his reaction. His family was also “strange”, from our point of view as teenagers spoiled by the attention of our parents and the well-being they had given us. But we were able to see the dignity of Andrea's mother and father and we felt a little of the fatigue of two parents with disabilities who traveled by public transport to go to work and do the shopping (we who came from families who owned two cars). Among my memories of adolescence is their indelible limp, their limping step, when they return home, slowly dragging themselves across the square onto which our apartments overlooked, like a theater of asphalt and concrete.
And it was to gain acceptance from all of us teenagers in the square that, at the end of eighth grade, Andrea organized a football challenge: us against his classmates. Except that they were coming from the opposite side of the consular road around which our neighborhood was growing. They came from the social housing sector, built many years earlier near the river, "deported" to the middle of nowhere, as happened to many in Italy. Thus, in this Pasolini context, in which Pasolini had actually lived for some time, the game that should never have been played was played, a game that ended immediately after it began and which marked Andrea's relationship with our group.
We were faced with kids who had repeated it once or twice in eighth grade, with the obvious desire to establish who was in charge among the teenagers in the neighborhood. But it wouldn't be who scored the most goals who decided it. I think the brawl lasted longer than the match, given that in the second action I knocked out a guy called "the Cap" with a punch. Unfortunately for the "Cap", I was wearing goalkeeper gloves, whose designs and stitching were printed precisely on his cheekbone. I don't remember much of what happened next, apart from the awareness of having the Cap above me, who in the meantime had knocked me to the ground, and about twenty guys who were fighting each other at random.
What I do remember, however, are the patrols of boys on motorbikes who, in the following days, appeared in the square keeping their chains clearly visible. The Cap was driving them, evidently looking for revenge, and who, after a couple of months in which none of us showed up on the road, got bored and disappeared. And we returned to group life, made up of the first cigarettes, the music of Vasco Rossi and always having a ball at our feet.
Andrea fared worse. He found himself marginalized by us, who thought we had ended up in a trap to make up for how we treated him, but also by his schoolmates, who had not been able to redeem the affront suffered by the "Cap". He was so marginalized by us that we didn't speak to him, in fact we didn't say hello at all, and we excluded him from the only activity that had brought us together: kicking a ball around.
For the following years, while life had disbanded our group and I was one of the few left to live in the neighborhood, at most I gave him a "hello". But more often, when I saw him from afar, I changed direction. I pretended nothing happened, but he knew it: he was "a strange guy", not stupid, as he told me about twenty years ago. And then he was used to being ignored and rejected from an early age. Probably before he became “Ugly Andrew” for us in the square.
Well, I saw Andrea's mental distress. I saw him in some of his manifestations and perhaps I was even a small part of it, contributing to his marginalization, making him pay for his non-conformity, treating him with the ferocity and insensitivity of which one is capable in adolescence.
But when, working for the Di Liegro Foundation, I saw the photos taken by Andrea, whose surname I remembered (even though I had almost never called him by his first and last name), I saw the past, adolescence and life, but with a different and new perspective. The shots taken by Andrea during the Foundation's photography workshops look at the city in a geometric way, drawing interactions between means of transport and the urban context, in which people are blurred, representing an almost negligible part of the landscape, to the point of disappearing.
That the author of those photos was really the Andrea I knew, and not a homonym, I understood during a Foundation meeting on Zoom, during the lockdown. I recognized Andrea's voice and face. In the expressions, in the gaze and in the desire - almost obsessive - for relationships with others, I saw the adolescent Andrea again and recognized the signs of discomfort. That mental discomfort that, before arriving at the Foundation, I ignored and was unable to see in people.
At the summer party that the Di Liegro Foundation organizes every year in June, bringing together users, volunteers and family members, and where the experiences of the art-therapy and socialization workshops held during the year are relived, I met Andrea. He didn't recognize me immediately, because I obviously couldn't be placed in a context other than the neighborhood streets. And this time, I didn't change my path. I went up to him: “Ahò, don't you recognize me?”.
We talked until the party ended, reviewing a few decades of our affairs, our families and our common acquaintances. Andrea still lives there, with his parents, in the apartment that still overlooks the square. A square that is no longer a theater or a football field, but just a parking lot always full of cars.
Photo by Batın Özen from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/kids-playing-soccer-in-the-street-7610880/
Information, services, answers to the most frequently asked questions on mental health problems: born Salutementale.net. The portal, created by ASL Roma 2 in collaboration with Fondazione Internazionale Don Luigi Di Liegro Onlus e Harcourt Foundation and edited by Study and Documentation Center (CSD) “Luigi Attenasio – Vieri Marzi”, is managed by the Department of Mental Health (DSM) in collaboration with the integrated social cooperative Il Grande Carro. The portal's activity is part of a vision of mental health that places the person at the centre, with their subjectivity, their unique history and their citizenship rights, with a view to an increasingly advanced socio-health integration.
Salutementale.net was presented today at the Di Liegro Foundation, in the presence of Antonio Gaudioso, Head of the technical secretariat of the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza, Alessio D'Amato, Councilor for Health and Social-Health Integration of the Lazio Region, Giuseppe Gambale Health director of ASL Roma 2, Luigina Di Liegro, General Secretary of the Don Luigi Di Liegro International Foundation, Massimo Cozza, director of the ASL Roma 2 Mental Health Department. The portal is the result of the work of an "integrated" editorial team made up of: 10 units including operators/users of mental health centres, operators/tutors and volunteers.
The portal presents itself as a space that offers support and suggestions to all those who need information on the delicate topic of mental health. If the first beneficiary is made up of people who find themselves experiencing mental distress and their families, Salutementale.net represents a national point of reference also for operators in the sector, caregivers, institutional and political experts, researchers, journalists and more generally for citizens. Within the different sections there are national and international news, research, regulations and rulings, institutional and scientific documents, events, editorial news and publications; Furthermore, the updated map of all the DSMs present in the national territory can be edited, with e-mail and web references.
Another important resource is represented by the answers to the most common questions (FAQ) on mental health, born from a discussion with family associations, and carried out through a work of systematisation of the requests received. Listening, information and orientation desk (SOSS) of the Di Liegro Foundation.
Salutementale.net intends to enhance theoretical contents and experiences that go in the direction of organizational and management innovation, filtering information based on scientific evidence and thus counteracting the increasingly insidious phenomenon of fake news. The portal is also powered thanks to reports from DSM operators, public bodies, scientific societies, voluntary associations, social cooperation actors, families and users, putting people with mental distress, families and the context at the center of attention of life and community with which they interact.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has strengthened the need to better protect issues related to mental health. For this reason, 38 million euros have been financed in the budget law to make psychological services more efficient, in particular for children, adolescents and weaker groups.. Furthermore, we have tied 60 million to regional projects to qualify treatment paths. Mental health is one of our priorities and we must continue on this path togetherand" commented the Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza.
“The portal presents itself as a space that offers support and suggestions to all those who need information on the delicate topic of mental health. Dedicated to people who find themselves experiencing mental health problems and their families, but it will also be a national point of reference for operators in the sector, caregivers, researchers and more generally for citizens" commented the Health Councilor of the Lazio Region, Alessio D'Amato.
“The creation of the mental health portal" stated Giuseppe Gambale, Health Director of ASL Roma 2, the largest in Italy with a catchment area of approximately 1 million and 300 thousand inhabitants “represents a contribution of information that falls within the scope of the prevention objectives that we make available to everyone”. “
This is a service” declared Massimo Cozza, Director of the DSM ASL Roma 2 “aimed primarily at the over 3 million citizens with mental disorders and their families, aimed at providing correct knowledge on mental health, trying to break down the walls of prejudice”.
“Today we present a project that constitutes the prototype par excellence of a modern idea of social and health integration, starting from people and their needs. The web portal is built with a humanizing approach that makes it a compass capable of guiding all citizens, away from any bureaucratic greyness. The Foundation thus makes its wealth of knowledge, skills and experience available to all, turning its gaze towards all the people who work and are involved in the world of mental health”, commented Luigina Di Liegro, general secretary of the Don Luigi Di Liegro Onlus International Foundation.
“CoèSa” is born in Rome, Community is Health - OdV, the association of volunteers, psychologists and educators that will allow young people to work in the area to support those suffering from mental health problems.
Coèsa will operate in via Ostiense, in the spaces of the Di Liegro Foundation which, with the new association of volunteers, aims to expand the network in the area, transmitting the culture of solidarity and civic participation to even the youngest, keeping memory and thought alive of Don Luigi. The Foundation, dedicated to the founder of Caritas Rome, has always been committed to supporting families and people forced to face the problems of mental distress.
Coèsa's activity will take place through listening desks, artistic and socialization workshops where children will be able to support their peers, meeting opportunities in the area to create integrated systems of services in the community, combating conditions of fragility and disadvantage. Objective ofVolunteer organization it will therefore be the construction and promotion of a supportive, active and cohesive community.
"The CoèSa Association was born from the need to pay maximum attention to youth hardship, a real emergency in the post-Covid era, and to promote a presence in the area by young people for their peers in difficulty. A study by the Guarantor in fact, highlights how cases of young people suffering from eating disorders, suicidal ideation, self-harm, alterations in the sleep-wake rhythm, and last but not least, social withdrawal are increasingly widespread" explains the president of the CoèSa Association, Marta Zammuto. “We are aware of the risk that mental health problems in children and young people could become chronic and spread on a large scale." concludes Zammuto.
ADOLESCENCE AND PREVENTION
The psychologist bonus becomes reality and can soon be requested. Anyone with an ISEE of up to 50 thousand euros will be entitled to it for psychological therapies, for a contribution of up to 600 euros per year. The Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, has in fact signed the decree implementing the so-called Psychologist Bonus, provided for by Law 15/2022 and financed by Parliament with 10 million euros for the year 2022.
What is the Psychologist Bonus
It provides an economic contribution for people suffering from depression, anxiety, stress and psychological fragility, due to the pandemic emergency and the resulting socio-economic crisis. The benefit can be used to support the expenses relating to psychotherapy sessions with registered psychologists who have joined the initiative, among which the citizen will be able to
choose.
"After publication in the Official Journal - stated Minister Speranza - it will be possible for those with an ISEE of up to 50 thousand euros to request a contribution to be used by registered psychologists. It is a first step. Mental health is one of the great themes of this time".
Who is entitled to the Psychologist Bonus
The contribution is recognized, only once, to those with an ISEE income not exceeding 50,000 euros, according to precise methods: with ISEE less than 15,000 the benefit is up to 50 euros for each session, for a maximum amount of 600 euros for each beneficiary; with ISEE between 15,000 and 30,000 euros the benefit is up to 50 euros for each session, for a maximum amount of 400 euros for each beneficiary and with ISEE greater than 30,000 and not exceeding 50,000 euros the benefit is up to 50 euros for each session, for a maximum amount of 200 euros for each beneficiary.
How to get the psychologist bonus
The access requests and the period of time in which to submit the application, electronically by accessing the
INPS platform or via INPS contact center, will be triggered upon publication of the decree in the Official Journal.
The assignment of the economic benefit will go primarily to people with the lowest ISEE and will take place on the basis of the order in which applications are received.
At the end of the application submission period, INPS will draw up the rankings, identify the beneficiaries and communicate to them the acceptance of the request and the unique code which, for the purposes of booking the psychotherapy session, will be assigned to each at the same time. The contribution must be used within 180 days from the date of acceptance of the application.
The beneficiary will communicate his unique code to the professional who, once the service has been provided, will issue the relevant invoice by uploading it to the INPS website which will directly provide for the remuneration of the services actually provided by the professionals.
On May 27, the conference "How to guarantee and promote mental health during war: evaluating and responding to the impact of trauma through the development of children and adolescents" was held in Warsaw, organized by Telefono Azzurro and Fondazione Child, in collaboration with World Psychiatric Association to discuss the war in Ukraine and the children and adolescents victims of this crisis.
Following the meeting, the 'Warsaw Declaration' was drawn up, a call to global action, as well as a commitment to develop a joint action plan to address, in a period of crisis such as the one we are experiencing with war, the mental health needs of children, adolescents and their families.
"Mental health disorders are among the most common pathologies affecting young people - underlines the document - Approximately half of the world's population will suffer from a mental disorder at some point in their lives, with 75% of these disorders starting before late adolescence and 50% before the end of childhood. The situation has worsened in the Covid era: at least 20% of young people have mood or anxiety disorders, not to mention other conditions. Emergency room visits for mental health problems have increased by 25% or more in some communities, with a dramatic increase in suicide attempts and overdoses.
Eight points included in the declaration on mental health, war and other crises:
- Publicly commit to a unified call-to-action with a global awareness campaign in response to the global child and adolescent mental health crisis;
- Convene a global summit, involving heads of state, leaders of international bodies, business leaders, religious leaders, scientists, doctors, NGOs, academic centers and other stakeholders, to develop a detailed, international action plan to respond to the growing crisis of mental health of children, adolescents and their families;
- Develop a progressive plan for training and widespread dissemination of prevention services based on currently available data, assessments, emergency response and care. This includes large-scale community-wide screening for mental disorders;
- Initiate high-quality, innovative research programs to rapidly develop new evidence-based individual and group interventions that are culturally sensitive and accessible in multiple languages. To make mental health care more widely accessible, these innovative services must optimize the use of remote and online supplies, via tablets, smartphones and the web:
- In collaboration with technology companies and clinical innovators, the development and implementation of new tools and techniques that enable rapid and remote expansion of mental health services for children and adolescents must be initiated early. It's time to use the metaverse as well as machine learning and
artificial intelligence and other technologies to increase access to evidence-based interventions;
- Rapidly expand high-quality mental health professional training programs to address the dramatic shortage of mental health professionals, including child and adolescent psychiatrists and psychologists, social workers, nurses, etc.;
- Rapidly expand a large-scale training program for family physicians and other medical professionals to recognize indicators of abuse and exploitation, and develop better systems to address the needs of unaccompanied children in times of crisis;
- That governments and private institutions increase the resources available to psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals to expand diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation services for children in crisis. This should include mentoring programmes, early recruitment and incentives to pursue professional careers in child and adolescent mental health services.
“We, a group of professionals, government officials and concerned citizens, have gathered in Warsaw to recognize and address a profound crisis of pain and suffering. The most recent crisis is the large-scale violence in Ukraine, which has generated a real new humanitarian crisis in terms of refugees - we read in the foreword of the document - This follows the devastation associated with the Covid pandemic, and at the same time the mass migrations due to poverty and violence in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas. With tens of millions of people in danger, this is a global crisis that has no problem ending."
Children, "the most vulnerable category of our global community - continues the document - are suffering the brunt of these international crises, with a devastating impact on their mental health. It has been said that 'children are one third of the world's population and our entire future." The future of the world is in danger. Even if we cannot end all violence, poverty, pandemics and exploitation, we can change the future with far-reaching plans and policies, followed by actions to take care of our children in their time of need."
Photo by Lissaa Spiridonova.
