An increase of 36% in symptoms associated with eating disorders and a boom in hospitalizations, increased by 48%, in the pandemic period: it is the domino effect that Covid has generated in patients with eating disorders including bulimia, anorexia nervosa and other food-related pathologies. These are the data that emerged from a study published byInternational Journal of Eating Disorder, a review of 53 studies conducted on the topic and which involved a total of over 36 thousand patients, with an average age of 24 years, of which over 90% were women.
The alteration of eating habits - from the desire to 'hoard' more food for fear of famine linked to the lockdown, to poorly structured meals, to significant weight gains - was the tip of the iceberg of a psycho-emotional fragility remained submerged: feelings of strong loneliness, abandonment and separation from the real context, worsening of mood, suicidal ideas, acts of self-harm, increased visits to the emergency room. The data from this international study were anticipated and confirmed by a multicenter survey conducted in Italy on people with eating disorders published in the Journal of Affective Disorders in 2021.
"We could define it as a 'hunger for food and the soul', an illness of the body and mind which confirms the close relationship between
brain and intestine, to which patients with eating disorders who are more exposed to depression and anxiety are more sensitive than the general population - he explains Matteo Balestrieri, co-president of the Sinpf and full professor of psychiatry at the University of Udine -. To aggravate the mental and metabolic health picture, there is also the difficulty in accessing treatment, i remote contacts with referring doctors, uncertainties related to the pandemic, changes in normal routine, the loss of structural fixed points and social contacts, the negative influence of the media".
"The data emerging from this international study are also confirmed in Italy, especially affecting young people - specifies Claudio Mencacci, co-president of the Sinpf and emeritus director of neurosciences and mental health at the ASST Fatebenefratelli-Sacco in Milan -. A recent multicenter survey conducted in Italy on people with eating disorders, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders in 2021, highlighted that during the lockdown there was a significant increase in anxiety (+20%), depression (+20%), post-traumatic symptoms (+16%), panic (+30%) and insomnia (+18%). After the first acute phase of the pandemic (the lockdown) most of these symptoms remained at the same level, while anxiety levels increased further (+10%) testifying to a general malaise and insecurity generated by the pandemic".
"Altered relationship with food, psychological distress, limitation of access to treatment - concludes Balestrieri - are a dramatic 'trinomial' for patients with eating disorders. We saw it every day in 'real life', today it is confirmed by studies: The
pandemic context, isolation, the loss of fixed points, the uncertainty of the future have exacerbated the fragility of this class of patients which in everyday life has translated into the search for more food, as a compensatory and rewarding act for the inability to accept and manage the sudden change in routine and the consequences that Covid has generated".
COVID AND TEENAGERS: INCREASED MENTAL DISCOMFORT
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The effects of Covid on children and young people, between social distancing, loss of routine, anxiety and uncertainty linked to the disease, up to the fear of parents and the difficulties generated by distance learning have made it necessary to intervene on the emotional and social sphere of students, especially on those in middle school classes, who started secondary school shortly before the start of the pandemic.
The project is based on the approach ofpeer education, an effective strategy for preventing and promoting mental health. By involving students, teachers and psychologists, the goal is improve the psychophysical and relational well-being of children, enhancing self-esteem, confidence and sense of security. Peer education, which involves the horizontal transmission of knowledge within a group, then promotes exchange between classmates, offering support between peers.
Each class develops a path during 10 group meetings lasting 2 hours each, scheduled 2 weeks apart.
The focus is on development of emotional and social skills such as the knowledge and regulation of emotions, the ability to take on the other's point of view, empathy, self-efficacy, assertive communication, which are the basis of functional and inclusive inter-personal relationships.
The practical approach, with activities such as role-playing, focus-groups and the use of mindfulness techniques, is integrated with cognitive reflection to promote group cohesion and psychosocial well-being.
Thanks to the positive relational climate built, the children deal with issues such as body acceptance, sexual orientation, sharing some complex life experiences, difficult communication with the adult world and perceived judgement, self-esteem and valorisation. of himself.
Mental health disorders can put you at greater risk of infection breakthrough of Covid-19, i.e. those infections that occur in those who have already been vaccinated or have already had the disease in the past. Coordinated research supports this
from the University of San Francisco and published on Jama Network Open.
The study, conducted on 263,697 people with an average age of 66, showed that the risk of infection among people under 65 with substance abuse, psychotic disorders, bipolar disorder, adjustment disorder and anxiety was up to 11% highest than in people without mental health problems. The risk rose to +24% among people over 65 years of age.
For researchers, the greater risk of infections among people with psychiatric disorders cannot be entirely explained by socio-demographic factors or pre-existing conditions. “It is possible that immunity after vaccination wanes more rapidly for people with psychiatric disorders or they may have less protection against new variants,” he says Aoife O'Donovan, one of the authors of the study.
The researchers also highlight how the risk of infections was lower for young people with mental disorders than for the elderly, despite the fact that many more cases are recorded among young people. For O'Donovan this phenomenon can be explained by a possible lower socialization among young people with psychotic disorders compared to older people who "could have more contacts given their worse general health conditions, which require a greater presence of caregiver or more contact with healthcare personnel".
In particular, among those over 65 the risk was 24% higher for those with substance abuse problems, 23% higher for those with psychotic disorders, the highest 16% for those suffering from bipolar disorder, the 14% for adjustment disorder and the 12% for anxiety. Among the youngest, the increased risk associated with substance abuse was 11%, that for adjustment disorder was 9%, for anxiety was 4% and for post-traumatic stress disorder was 3%.
COVID, MOOD DISORDERS AND SUICIDE
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The psychological well-being conditions of 14-19 year olds have worsened in 2021. This is what emerges from Wellbeing and Health Report (BES) 2021, presented by Istat. The BES project has led the country to have a continuously evolving system of measures of real progress and allows us to give timely and collective answers to the simple and at the same time very difficult question: "How is life in Italy?" ?”. Thanks to the report, explained the president of Istat, Gian Carlo Blangiardo, it is possible highlight the areas where inequalities occur And identify the most disadvantaged groups, directing the demand on solid evidence of targeted policies.
Many gaps have remained, or even widened: from life expectancy at birth to avoidable mortality, from municipal spending on culture to the impact of forest fires and illegal building, which is stronger in the southern regions.
The pandemic has mostly resulted in setbacks in the well-being of the female population: for example, in levels of psychological well-being and employment, especially for mothers with young children.
But they were even children, adolescents and very young people pay a very high price to the pandemic and the restrictions imposed by measures to combat infections. It is they who require, today and in the years to come, the utmost attention from politicians.
During the pandemic years, young people between 14 and 19 are the only ones who have known a significant deterioration in life satisfaction, with the percentage of very satisfied people moving from 56.9% in 2019 to 52.3% in 2021.
If dissatisfied adolescents with a low mental health score in 2019 were 3.2% of the total, in 2021 this percentage has doubled (6.2%). These are approximately 220 thousand children between 14 and 19 years old who declare themselves dissatisfied with their lives and find themselves, at the same time, in a condition of poor psychological well-being.
On the other hand, the same phenomena of bullying, violence and vandalism by very young people, which have occupied the news in recent months, are extreme manifestations of widespread and perhaps not transitory suffering and restlessness.
In this same age group, the sedentary lifestyle it went from 18.6 to 20.9%, given the impossibility for many to continuously carry out sporting activities. And, among 14-17 year olds, they have been observed high shares of alcohol consumers at risk of damaging their psychological well-being (23,6%).
Among young people, for whom peer relationships are of the utmost importance for harmonious development, it is satisfaction with relationships with friends also tangibly decreased. The share of very satisfied 14-19 year olds has lost 6.5 points in two years. Between 2019 and 2021, the percentage of young people aged 14-24 who say they meet up with friends at least once a week fell from 89.8% to 73.8%. In this age group, the percentage of those who declared themselves very satisfied with their family relationships also decreased (-4 points).
It is not difficult to understand the reasons for this disaffection: in 2021, the continuation of the difficulties for parents and children in sharing domestic spaces also for working and attending lessons, the reduced possibilities of hanging out with fellow students due to the alternation of teaching in presence and at a distance for a good part of the school or academic year, the limitations in the possibility of practicing sporting and recreational activities have contributed to a sort of desertification of affections, which has eroded the foundations of youth satisfaction.
Volunteering activity, which remained stable in the first year of the pandemic: in 2021 recorded a contraction of almost 5 points among young people aged 14-19. Between 2019 and 2021, social participation also decreases significantly, by around 11 points, in the 14-24 age group.
Our country, on the eve of the pandemic, had not yet recovered the profound losses in terms of youth employment rate linked to the economic recession and had increased the distance from the European average. In 2019 in Italy the employment rate of young people aged 25-34 continued to remain the lowest of all European countries, with a particularly wide gap for girls. With the arrival of the pandemic, the situation of young people on the job market has further deteriorated, especially for women, whose employment rate has suffered the greatest losses.
Italy has a sad record in Europe for the number of young people between 15 and 29 who are no longer included in a school or training course or even engaged in a working activity, known as NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training).
Another critical factor is represented by thehigh number of early dropouts: the share of young people aged 18-24 who leave the education and training system without having obtained a diploma or qualification, also called Early Leavers from Education and Training (ELET) in 2021 is equal to 12.7% in Italy, the highest value than that set as the maximum limit at European level (10%), already reached on average by the EU.
For the most educated and qualified young people, Italy does not yet offer adequate opportunities. And so, despite the limitations on mobility imposed during the first year of the pandemic, and the uncertainty that characterized 2020, the emigration abroad of young Italian graduates has intensified compared to 2019.
Di Liegro Foundation: SOS Youth. Old, new and brand new addictions
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Teenagers and Covid. In the United States, in the first six months of 2021, due to the pandemic and the lockdown, psychiatric hospitals report an increase45% increase in the number of cases of self-harm and suicide attempts up to 17 years old compared to the same period in 2020. In Italy the National Council of the Order of Psychologists (Cnop), last October in a report, with responses from 5,621 specialists, found that patients under 18 years of age on therapy increased 31%. It is the synthesis of a focus of the Freud Institute of Milan which aims to address students' problems in an adequate manner.
"The signs are strong: anxiety, depression, self-harm. After these two years of pandemic, we need to intercept the
general discomfort - explained director Daniele Nappo - With post-Covid, teenagers are fighting a very complex period and condition in their lives, with repercussions for their mental health; Unfortunately, psychological support, prevention and listening were talked about little before and are still talked about little today. The signs of widespread worsening are clear and shared but the alarm seems to have gone unheeded."
The pandemic has produced a general decline in the mental health of boys and girls, with consequences for all adolescents between 12 and 18 years - it is underlined in the analysis - Those who had no worries had to face phases of
confusion and discomfort due to the limitations of sociality; for those who were already in a critical condition the rates decreased
possibility of asking for support, and the risk of not being able to intercept and partly manage requests for help is increased for the health and social system.
Throughout Italy, hospitals have been forced to increase the number of beds in child neuropsychiatry departments to receive a number of people that has never been seen in recent years.
Di Liegro Foundation: Young people and Youth Work
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Manifesto for mental health: without a well-functioning public service the entire mental health care system is in crisis. The suffering person must be cared for within the community in which he lives. Therapy is not assistance, but a caring that includes the wishes of the operators and the suffering subjects.
The instrument of care is the local team which has a multidisciplinary approach, within which the different professionalisms and scientific perspectives dialogue and collaborate with each other and with the associations of users and their families.
These are the founding points of the renewal of mental health within the National Health Service proposed by Mental Health Manifesto, promoted by Angelo Barbato ofMario Negri Pharmacological Institute; Antonello D'Elia, president of Democratic psychiatry; Pierluigi Politi, professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pavia; Fabrizio Starace, president of Italian Society of Psychiatric Epidemiology; Sarantis Thanopulos, president of Italian psychoanalytic society.
The Manifesto, presented last March 28th with an online event, is supported by representatives of the civil society, scientific societies and operators' associations of the public service and the third sector.
During the presentation, it was underlined how "the pharmacological treatment of pain dissociated from psychotherapeutic work (in public services psychotherapies represent a 6% of the treatments provided) and from the complex work of socio-cultural and work integration in the community in which one lives, leaves unanswered the demand for subjectification of one's own experience and for claiming the right of citizenship (de facto denied to the subject who has lost his place in the
world). The drug is called an improper function compared to its real ability to relieve, make the pain tolerable and its use becomes abusive and abusive. To the extent that the biomedical model that pursues this perspective, regardless of the dialogue with other forms of knowledge, also claims to constitute itself as a paradigm of ways of taking care of our feelings, it becomes a danger for freedom and democracy".
"The project of rethinking mental health, to strengthen it, is not a nostalgic operation. It intends, however, to recover all the acquisitions of law 180, today largely disregarded, the scientific pluralism which for many years has allowed a humanizing approach to suffering and non-technical and a civilization of care that had set aside all practices of violent restraint, now incredibly readmitted. Shaking consciences is necessary to escape the depersonalization of therapeutic devices but, at the same time, the validity of the treatments in terms of quality of life and their ability to take charge of the dialogue between the individual and the community, allow everyone's feelings and thoughts to breathe".
"Operator training must be excellent: this means making it more rigorous and above all intervening on academic preparation. Mutual support between local teams and the communities in which they work is very important and is the best way to avoid falling into the depths of a sick society. The care of society, in the context of public service, does not pass through the guidelines of an abstract 'psychological well-being', a sort of psychic fitness. It must take charge of concretely and potentially pathogenic situations, acting in a preventive sense, and collaboration with creative practices and knowledge external to mental health is necessary. Collaboration on a clinical and research level between mental health departments, universities and scientific societies, some of which have activated consultation and therapy services aimed at social distress, is equally necessary".
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According to the 2020 Mental Health Report, 728,338 people in Italy needed psychiatric care from specialist services during 2020, in practice 143.4 per 10 thousand adult inhabitants, with regional differences ranging from 34.2 in Molise to 195.4 in Umbria. Users are female in 53.6% of cases, while the composition by age reflects the aging of the general population, with a large percentage of patients over 45 years of age (69.0%).
They were 232,376 people who in 2020 asked for help from mental health services for the first time in their lives.
This is what emerges from the last one Report on Mental Health published by the Ministry of Health, which constitutes, at a national level, the richest source of information on health and social care interventions for adults with mental health problems and their families.
The Mental Health Report offers the reader an overview of the evidence emerging from the various information sources available. The data is collected through the SISM (Mental Health Information System) which represents the key tool for planning at the regional and local level of care provision, as well as for design strategies at a national level, modulated over medium-long periods, in consideration of the trends in the prevalence of the main mental disorders, which is associated with different degrees of disability, individual and family suffering, as well as heavy economic and social costs.
The users of psychiatric services are in 53.6% cases women and in 69% cases they are over 45 years of age. In both sexes, there are fewer patients under the age of 25 while the highest concentration occurs between 45 and 64 years.
The most frequent pathologies are depression (31.2 cases per 10,000 inhabitants), schizophrenia and other functional psychoses (29.9), neurotic and somatoform syndromes (18), mania and bipolar affective disorders (11.9) , personality and behavioral disorders (10.3). Among males, schizophrenic disorders, personality disorders, substance abuse disorders and mental retardation are more frequent, while women are predominantly affected by affective, neurotic and depressive disorders. In particular, for depression the rate among women is almost double that of males: 40.4 per 10,000 inhabitants versus 24.2.
Among younger users of local services, neurotic and somatoform syndromes predominate; the prevalence of users with schizophrenic psychosis is maximum around the age of 50, while affective disorders progressively increase across the age groups up to 64 years. As is Depression is also a pathology that becomes more frequent with increasing age reaching a peak at 55-64 years in both sexes.
The services provided in 2020 by local services were 8,299,120, with an average of 12.3 services per user. The 33% of the interventions is represented by nursing activities at home and in the territory, the 22.8% by psychiatric activity, the 11.4% by territorial rehabilitation and resocialization activities.
As regards hospital care, in 2020 there were 84,491 discharges from psychiatric facilities (public and private), with an average stay of 13.4 days. Emergency room admissions for psychiatric pathologies are there were 421,208, 3.2% of the total number of accesses to the ED.
The average annual expenditure for psychiatric care in 2020 was 67.5 euros for each resident. For drugs, the total gross expenditure on drugs antidepressants was over 391 million euros in the affiliated assistance regime (with a number of packages exceeding 37 million) and 1 million euros in the direct distribution regime (with a number of packages equal to 496,762). For the category of antipsychotics gross expenditure exceeding 77 million euros for the affiliated (5.9 million packages) and approximately 72 million euros for the direct (6.7 million packages). For the category Lithium the gross expenditure under the agreement was approximately 3.6 million euros (900,840 packs) and 55,208 euros in direct distribution (24,349 packs).
In 2020 the mental health information system detected activity data of 1,299 territorial services, 1,949 residential structures and 811 semi-residential structures which refer to approximately 94% of the DSM. In 2020 the number of active SPDCs (Psychiatric Diagnosis and Treatment Service) is equal to 328, with a total of 4,156 beds for ordinary hospitalizations and 310 beds for day hospital admissions; the hospital structures in agreement that provide psychiatric assistance activities are equal to 18 with a total of beds for ordinary hospitalization equal to 792 and 3 places for day hospital. For the whole of Italy, the supply of beds in ordinary hospitalization is 9.9 per 100,000 adult inhabitants.
The overall endowment of the personal within the public psychiatric operational units, in 2020, it amounted to 28,807 units, while 12,176 units who operate in healthcare facilities affiliated with the Department of Mental Health.
Download the 2021 Mental Health Report
A summary of the recent editorial entitled "Impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on mood disorders and suicidal intentions", created by some doctoral students of the Department of Dynamic, Clinical and Health Psychology of the La Sapienza University of Rome.
The unexpected spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has led to a global crisis that has fundamentally changed our lives. Nearly 2 years into the pandemic, COVID-19 still poses a significant threat to individual and global security. Governments have taken the necessary measures restrictive measures to contain the infection and reduce the impact of the crisis on healthcare systems around the world, have forced people to distance themselves and isolate themselves socially.
For this reason, the pandemic still has important repercussions not only on physical health: iPsychological well-being has been seriously affected considering that during the pandemic period the risk of the onset of mental disorders has also increased.
The editorial describes research articles focusing on the effects of the pandemic on people's mood and behaviors. Of particular importance, in fact, was the spread of depressive symptoms, anxiety and suicidal ideation, in different countries and populations (such as healthcare workers, students and people with specific clinical conditions). Furthermore, the research topic highlights current challenges in coping with the psychological impact of COVID-19, providing insights for clinical practice to support healthcare workers, patients with COVID-19 and their family members.
Chiara Ciacchella, Virginia Campedelli, Giorgio Veneziani, Gaia Romana Pellicano, Daniela Sambucini, Carlo Lai -
Department of Dynamic, Clinical and Health Psychology, La Sapienza University of Rome
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"Intercepting signs of distress and intervening in a timely and effective manner are essential skills for those who work with young people." He declared it today Rodolfo Lena, President of the Health Commission of the Lazio Regional Council, speaking at the conference 'Bridge the gap. Intervention tools for young people's mental health, promoted by the Don Luigi Di Liegro International Foundation, by ASL Roma 1 to present the results of the European Project YouProMe.
"This project - underlined Lena - was born with the aim of offer Youth Workers (figures who work in various capacities in close contact with young people) models and tools to intervene in favor of the well-being and mental health of young people. The Youth Worker is a figure recognized by European policies and a precious resource in our country too: a large number of people who play a strategic role as sports coaches, youth group leaders, art teachers. Often these are also volunteers, who make their skills available which in this historical moment have become even more important, given the dramatic psychological consequences of Covid on younger people".
"Adolescence represents a high-risk phase because identity is built in this period. The pandemic has had, and is still having, a strong push towards isolation among adolescents, even more so among those who had already shown discomfort mental. Compared to the pre-pandemic period, cases of depression and anxiety among adolescents have more than doubled. Access to the emergency room and hospital admissions in 30% also doubled, with peaks in 70% in eating disorders, according to data from the ASL Roma 1. Immediate interventions are needed at different levels, in synergy between educational, scholastic and social-health institutions. Lazio - concluded the President of the Health Commission of the Regional Council - is implementing a work to support and increase the territorial child neuropsychiatry services and more generally all the services for the protection of mental health and rehabilitation of developmental age, the only ones capable of having the necessary multidisciplinary approach".
Sports coaches, youth group leaders, art teachers... in a word Youth Workers!
The need to invest in training It is on recognition of skills of this multitude of people is the basis of the European Erasmus+ project “Youth Workers Promoting Mental Health (YouProMe)” whose results were presented this morning in Rome. At the meeting, promoted by Don Luigi Di Liegro International Foundation onlus and from ASL RM1 leaders of the project spoke among others: Fabrizio Starace – Coordinator of the Mental Health Technical Table of the Ministry of Health, Rodolfo Lena – President of the VII Commission on Health, social policies, socio-health integration, welfare of the Lazio Region, Barbara Funari – Councilor for Social Policies and Health of the Municipality of Rome, Alessandra Aluigi – Councilor for Social Policies, Rome Municipality. The day was also an opportunity for reflect together to the European partners of England, Greece and Romania on new challenges related to the mental health of young people, which our society is facing as never before in this moment of pandemic.
“Those who suffer from forms of mental distress during childhood and adolescence risk experiencing not only poorer mental health in adulthood, but also greater difficulties in relationships and life in general." declares Luigina Di Liegro, General Secretary of the Di Liegro Foundation “For this knowledge intercept signals of discomfort, intervene in a timely, effective manner and inclusive are essential skills for those who work together with young people. Thanks to this project” goes on “we had the opportunity to share and export our good practices for mental health; develop shared interventions and make them available to Youth workers, to ensure the full and harmonious growth of all citizens of tomorrow.”The Youth Worker is a profile expressly recognized within European youth policies and a precious resource in our country too. A varied galaxy that involves in various capacities a large number of people who, operating along the edge in informal contexts, play a strategic role for the well-being and health of children: from the sport, to that of cultural and artistic activities, recreational, from the activities of socialization and recreational a to social assistance and civil protection. Organizations of Volunteering, associations, businesses and social cooperatives, non-profit organizations which, without counting those who voluntarily make their skills available, have overall 861.919 employees (Istat data 2019).
PROJECT
Started even before the pandemic by Don Luigi Di Liegro International Foundation and the ASL Rome 1 with partners from Great Britain, Romania and Greece, the “YouproMe” project aims to offer Youth Workers shared models and useful operational tools to be able to intervene effectively the well-being and mental health of young people.
Materials and documents, free and downloadable from the site www.youpromeproject.eu , which you can draw on to broaden your skills, orient yourself on the topic and find practical suggestions for activities and interventions in the field.
A strategic project given the dramatic psychological consequencesof Covid on the younger ones, who did not have the opportunity to peacefully experience the fundamental moments of their growth. Data which require immediate interventions and at different levels, in synergy between educational and socio-health institutions.Compared to the pre-pandemic period, the cases of depression, anxiety among teenagers have more than doubled (Data published by Jama Pediatrics).
A study from the Meyer Children's Hospital in Florence reports that patients with food disorders they increased 4 times compared to previous years (June 2021 data).The latest observations conducted by the Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome speak of an increase in 30% attempts to suicide And self-harm among the younger ones.
Finally, data from the Mental Health Department of ASL Roma 1 confirm that the pandemic has led to an average increase in the incidence of mental disorders in adolescence of 30%, with tips of 70% in eating disorders. Most of these are brain disorders emotional-affective regulation, mainly self-harm and suicide attempts, poly-substance abuse resulting in psychotic episodes, unstable eating behaviors, live and online violence; less frequent, but no less worrying, are disorders defined as "internalizing": isolation, sleep-wake rhythm inversion, hikikomori, etc.THE STORIES
“When I was a schoolboy" tells Philip, 18 years old interviewed within the Project “My friend Daniele and I had great difficulty studying. Both in understanding the explanations of the professors, who also tried their hardest with us, and in learning about the books. Every opportunity was a good one to escape. In the end" continues in his strong Roman accent “To recover they forced us to go to an after-school program. There was a boy there who was a little older than us to help us... I don't even remember his name, but he had a way of speaking that made us want to study. More to me than to Daniele to tell the truth" he concludes laughing “But he never gave up and, in the end, we both got to the diploma.” Francesca, 27 years old, he has a degree in animal breeding and dog education, obtained at the University of Pisa, where thanks to his thesis on "Pet Therapy" he found a way to combine his love for animals with the desire to help people more fragile. But his passions don't end there. “Since I was a girl I have always played volleyball.” tells "For this reason, when they asked me to participate as a coach in the project to start practicing sports in my neighborhood middle school, I accepted with enthusiasm..” An experience interrupted due to the restrictions due to Covid, but which still allowed Francesca to enter into relationships with many boys and girls between 11 and 14 years old. “Playing helped everyone! Both the more competent kids and the less sporty ones, at least in appearance. A few meetings were enough to bring out hidden abilities in each of us.” Goes on "The more experienced gave some advice to the more insecure, who thus gained fluency and ease even off the pitch. Being together and playing did the rest, helping the older ones, including me, to listen and help”.
Don Gabriele he is a young priest of 32 years old, engaged in his mission as assistant parish priest in a parish on the outskirts of Rome. “Every day I meet many boys and girls: in the oratory, in the scout group where I am an assistant, in Church. I feel to all intents and purposes like an informal educator and as such I always need new tools. In the first place for me there is certainly the desire to share experiences and interact with competent people, in order to have more strength and incisiveness in dealing with youth problems.”. He continues talking about his experience “I have seen first-hand the discomfort that the pandemic has brought with it, sometimes bringing out latent problems. At the same time there is a great desire for life and rebirth in the children. Being together, having adults at their side with whom they can enter into positive relationships, has helped them and continues to help them overcome obstacles and barriers (including forced distancing and masks). Their positive potential is there, you just need to give them support and accompaniment. To do it best and grow together with them, there are never enough opportunities.”
Silvia she is 24 years old and has so much energy and desire to do that it is difficult to fit her into a single definition. She is at the same time a volunteer, a scout leader, a young graduate in Clinical Psychology and we could continue for a while! Among the many reasons that led her to be interested in the "Youprome" project, she chose to talk to us about her internship experience with kids who have various mental health problems. “The project in which I am involved involves children between 14 and 18 years old in informal and socio-rehabilitative activities. Through hippotherapy, for example, we make them live a new experience: for once they are the ones who take care of and pay attention to someone other than themselves. In the care of the horse, in the foster relationship they are committed, they have fun, they feel lighter.” Here I understood how necessary it is to combine the theory studied in books with practice, contact, relationships. With the Youprome project" explains “I have found new resources for my work: tools designed and tested for children who suffer from mental distress in this age group to draw on for new and stimulating activities for everyone.”
