The Project is recognized at European level within the Erasmus+ programme, through which the European Commission wants to encourage joint work between partners from different countries, to build an integrated path towards a quality of life that facilitates well-being and social inclusion , against stigma and marginalization.
A strategic program for the European Community, if we consider that mental disorders affect approximately 27% (83m.) of European citizens annually (European Social Work, 2013).
HERO - sharing the know-how of various EU countries relating to the social inclusion of people with serious mental distress, training methods and consolidated practice in the housing sector - aims to study what makes a place or which makes it a source of well-being, not only for users, but also for their family members, operators and citizens. Places that must be interconnected, permeable, habitable and modifiable. Where everyone can feel welcomed as a person, not characterized or stigmatized. Where everyone can recognize that mental health (and not only) is a heritage that concerns everyone and can be achieved if everyone is involved.
By housing we mean a process that favors the transition from the helping relationship to social inclusion. Numerous studies have shown how "community-based" services obtain better results in terms of treatment compliance, clinical symptoms, quality of life, housing stability and rehabilitation, compared to other models of care (Braun P. et al. 1981 ; Conway M. et al. 1994; Bond et al. 2001). At the same time, housing understood in this way is connected to the safeguarding of rights (citizenship, reduction of stigma, etc.), the rationalization of public spending (offering an alternative to the costs of excessive recourse to institutionalisation) and the development of an active and competent citizenry.
The project "You learn to do well at school" is a journey of peer education which takes place in two high schools in Rome over the course of three years. The aim of the project is promote well-being and prevent bullying through a peer approach, where students are trained as peer counselors to support their peers.
The first phase of the project involves the entire student body and has the aim of making it cohesive and enhancing it as a resource and protection factor. Through the intervention and guidance of the psychological team, the classes worked on creating a sense of belonging, collaboration, cooperation and integration between peers. This work allowed the creation of a positive and well-being climate, to limit marginalization or isolation, phenomena which can cause, in addition to individual discomfort with consequent poor academic performance and possible school dropouts, the onset of the phenomenon of bullying.
The second phase involves the identification, within the various classes, of students motivated to become peer consultants and provides them with training to strengthen personal resources, develop self-efficacy and skills (empowerment) identified together, including and shared (life skills). This was followed by monitoring, support and supervision of the peer counselors.
The third phase aims to consolidate the work done and further develop the function of peer counselors by integrating it into an educational program based on promoting well-being at school. Peer counselors become peer educators and enter the classroom to raise awareness among their classmates about the topics they have learned.
It's only love if you know how to give love. That Do love which is action, which manifests itself in care for yourself and others. By participating in the raffle you will take care of people who suffer from mental distress, supporting inclusion projects and the concrete battle against stigma that the Foundation has been carrying out for more than twenty years. Furthermore, you will participate in the drawing of wellness rewards carefully chosen for you:
The drawing of the winning tickets will be held during The music that changes everything next February 14th: an evening of art and solidarity in the prestigious setting of the Santa Cecilia Conservatory (via dei Greci, 18 - Rome). Entry to Valentine's Day includes a raffle ticket.
RAFFA TICKETS
To purchase raffle tickets write to us at segreteria@fondazionediliegro.it, call us on 06 6792669 or stop by the Foundation in via Ostiense 106 - Rome
For Eugenio Borgna mental disorders are typical of the human condition and no one is excluded, "each of us can experience mental suffering regardless of age, culture and social condition”. This means that people who experience a situation of mental suffering are looked at, both by services and citizens, with an attitude of understanding and solidarity. However, a change of pace is needed in the field of mental health towards a "gentle psychiatry” and a public opinion less unfamiliar with the topic.
The beautiful book by Eugenio Borgna, published by Giulio Einaudi Editore (2019), outlines theexcursus historian of psychiatry to the point of glimpsing, or rather hoping for, that of the future, in light of his experience as a psychiatrist who spanned a good part of the twentieth century.
The author starts from the first revolution in psychiatry which at the beginning of the last century, inspired by a philosophical current, proposed as the object of psychiatry not the brain with its dysfunctions, but the subjectivity, the interiority of the patients, that is, the person and not the illness. It is the "phenomenological" approach which, however, has not managed to counter the hegemony of "somatological" psychiatry. This, like a natural science, with its laws and its determinisms establishes the bio-medical approach and the objectivization of the patient reduced to his symptoms and isolated in special containers, the mental hospitals, which have the ambiguous mandate of guaranteeing the “cure” of madness together with social control.
The author is also a participant-protagonist of the second revolution, the ethical one imagined by Basaglia (which inspired law 180/1978), which starting from the phenomenological approach makes possible what seemed impossible, the overcoming of the total institution of the mental hospital and the liberation of the patient because without freedom there is no possibility of treatment. Psychiatry becomes a social science, a human science and the suffering person is taken care of in a complex system of services in the area. However, even today, over 40 years later, law 180 is partly incomplete or betrayed according to two indicators: the orientation towards separateness and containment in the model of hospital diagnosis and treatment departments (SPDC) which does not always guarantee conditions of hospitalizations that respect the human rights of patients, and the same goes for many residential facilities, which are more containment than curative; the application of the dizzying increase in disorders that crowd diagnostic manuals (see DSM), in line with the cultural tendency to exclude subjectivity from behaviors and with it the search for meanings that characterize them. Hence the orientation towards the administration of psychotropic drugs that limits or excludes psychotherapy and social inclusion.
And the psychiatry of the future? It's a "gentle psychiatry", from the human face of the operator who knows how to welcome and enter into emotional resonance with the suffering person to establish an open dialogue that requires time and which starts from active and understanding listening where words and body language are as important as silences . The key word here is "identification" which enhances the psycho-relational approach that comes before any other service, including pharmacological, complementary and never substitutive. For the mental health worker it is a matter of authentically encountering the suffering person in their humanity, of entering into their history and grasping the meaning hidden in mental suffering, allowing themselves to be challenged by emotions and words that reflect their interiority. The psychotherapeutic relationship is thus a meeting between two interiorities, the dialogue arises from deep within, from the search for oneself in the other and for the other in oneself. For Borgna “without the search for what unites us, despite every difference (...) we cannot help those who are ill, nor can we safeguard our interiority which tends to dry up and die”. It's still "psychiatry betrays its reason for being human if there are no ideal goals within us: such as kindness and sensitivity, intuition and grace, fantasy and imagination, solidarity and hope”. This is why we need operators with emotional and cultural aptitudes, with sensitivity open to entering into relationships with others, and to listening to the subdued and neglected voices of pain.
Ultimately it emerges that in mental health services the essential elements to found a therapeutic relationship are: ethics at the service of professionalism, the authentic relationship with the person and the understanding of their suffering.
Emblematic phrase of the book is: “in doing psychiatry it is impossible not to integrate general medical knowledge with internal knowledge: knowledge of oneself, of course, but also that of emotions and interiority, of expectations and hopes, of ours and of the people who ask help, which is never just medicine, but words and silences, which open the heart to trust and hope”.
Renato Frisanco, Luigi Di Liegro Foundation
The conference, reflecting on the theme of mental health in young people, aims to focus on and analyze the complex world of addictions and their relationship with mental distress.
International literature highlights that approximately 75% of all mental disorders arise before the age of 24. In particular, the WHO reveals that one in 5 adolescents today suffers from some mental disorder and this trend is also growing for the years to come.
L'adolescence and the early youth they represent the phase of life in which the onset or the first episode of most mental disorders.
To the typical problems of this transition phase of the evolutionary cycle, which involves a profound transformation at a biological and neurobiological level, in our society there are added potential risk factors connected to the rapids technological transformations and to theirs cultural and social reflections, both in local communities and globally.
In particular, the theme of substance addictions And addictions pathological behaviors in their modern complexity, they represent today asocial emergency which requires us to inform and train families, health and social workers, educators, all citizens, especially in the perspective of prevention of discomfort.
The themes of prevention and promotion of mental health constitute the central objectives of the working group integrated within this conference, which is organized with the collaboration of the Harcourt Foundation, of the Association Observatory on Addiction (ODDPSS), of Italian Society of Psychiatric Epidemiology (SIEP) and the Faculties of Social Sciences and Psychology of Pontifical Gregorian University.
The conference therefore represents an important opportunity to delve deeper into the topic of mental health in adolescence, highlighting some of the most widespread problems among young people today. Furthermore, it is proposed to create one space for comparison useful for a rethinking and reorganization of intervention methodologies in managing the phenomenon that takes into account the different actors involved and its social and cultural, as well as clinical, complexity.
Participation in the conference is free.
To register:
Or
ECM and training credits - Upon request, a certificate of attendance will be issued. The event is accredited by Duerre congressi SRL provider n.522 for n. 7 ECM credits for all healthcare professions (voluntary contribution €50). 7 training credits for Social Workers (cVoluntary contribution €20). The event is also accredited by the Journalists' Association for n. 7 credits (CFP).
The Foundation has prepared a summary of the National Mental Health Conference which took place last 14-15 June at the Faculty of Economics ofLa Sapienza University of Rome. The national event was prepared by a journey through Italy Regional Conferences and from other local meetings; the appeal refers to three key words that coagulate its meaning: rights, freedoms, services.
The text traces the contributions provided by the various speakers who attended, gives an account of the work developed in the six thematic sessions and ends with the catalog of requests-proposals that emerged from the Conference and addressed to the institutions.
Download the report on National Mental Health Conference edited by Renato Frisanco.
I'm Lisa, I'm 67 years old. I felt very alone after the death of my doctor and the closure of the Day Center where I had friends who understood me. I arrived at the Foundation 5 years ago, my family told me that I would find new friends and that I would act with them in the theater workshop!
My sister Maria was always with me, even when we rehearsed. Sometimes I find myself in places I don't remember and don't understand where I am.
Today Maria no longer comes. A volunteer from the Foundation accompanies me but remains outside waiting for me. I love my new actor friends and I trust them.
“They say: there is a psychologist. But I'm not crazy, going to the psychologist. You have to tell me: come, I'll listen to you. If you want to publicize it you have to say: there is a place where we listen to you. It's very different, because a person wants to be listened to, not cared for."
This is how Aurora describes her experience “peer education” which he has been leading for a couple of years together with the other students of two Roman high schools, Seneca and Dante. It is a project born from the collaboration between the mental health department of ASL Roma 1, the Di Liegro Foundation and the Harcourt Foundation.
“Peer education” is a prevention and health promotion strategy that is spreading in various countries. Students, teachers and psychologists work together with the aim of helping children find psycho-physical and relational well-being, made up of self-esteem, trust, friendship and a sense of security. What they are looking for, often without having a clear understanding, but struggle to find in the group, in the class, in the school. Overcoming the malaise that you experience in adolescence is easier if your peers, appropriately trained, help you. Guys who share your experiences. They become your tutors and lead you towards a path of psychological support.
Every week a listening desk is open at school, with a psychologist expert in developmental age. To book a meeting there is a blank sheet of paper on which the kids can also put a nickname, or just a sign. Because, explains Sofia, one is ashamed to ask for psychological help, in front of friends and even in the family.
For psychologists and teachers the balance of these two years is decidedly positive. The kids who participated in the project have grown and matured. They have become much more aware of issues that concern them, such as cannabis, smoking, alcohol, bullying. Their behaviors have also changed; they are more autonomous, freer, less influenced by negative stimuli that can derive from the peer group.
Everyone agrees that it is an experience to be continued and extended to parents.
This is Linda's story. Our daughter is 20 years old, she was born in Colombia and we adopted her when she was 9 years old. As a child, relationships in the family were very affectionate, but relational difficulties with her peers soon emerged. She always felt "not accepted" and "rejected" by her classmates. He was very exuberant and seemed sociable, but in reality he harbored a lot of anger and a sense of rebellion within himself that exploded with growth and adolescence.
By participating in the course for volunteers and family members, we came into human contact with people who, like our daughter, experience mental distress.
Linda's family
We helped her with psychological support, then also with drugs that stabilized her mood. However, she became increasingly intolerant of the rules, resentful towards her family and parents, teachers, classmates, the world. She left school in the 3rd year of high school and, at eighteen, she decided to "turn the page" and reject everything she had been. She stayed away from home for months, frequented degraded environments, looking for something that would give meaning to her life and her unhappiness.
Since she "abandoned" her family, school, psychological support and medicine, she has no longer committed herself to any type of project (study, work, hobby). Her inconstancy and variability of mood prevented her from building anything. For about a year she has been dating a boy with the same problems as her. She created a symbiotic relationship with him. They are always together, doing nothing, without friendships, often in depression. However, this emotional stability is contained in the most negative behaviors and attitudes.
Linda's story continues when we learned about the Di Liegro Foundation in the autumn of 2017 through an announcement in the city free press. In the previous years we had had several contacts with our daughter's therapists and we had also experienced the process of family therapy, but the pain and anxiety did not allow us to deeply understand the real situation. In 2016 our daughter had “slipped out of hand” and we were lost.
We started following the course for volunteers and family members of people with mental health problems, organized by the Foundation. The explanations of professionals, psychologists and psychiatrists, listening and discussing with other family members opened a window onto a world we had been in contact with, but which we had not really understood. Concepts, key words, suggestions received in the past have acquired a different rational and emotional meaning for us, thanks to the Di Liegro Foundation. We looked at our daughter with new eyes, with less anger for all the pain experienced because of her. It was a slow change that brought us closer to her again.
The Di Liegro Foundation allowed us to attend a self-help group, introduced us to multi-family therapy and also gave us the opportunity to volunteer. We thus entered into human contact with people who, like our daughter, experience mental distress. Together with them, in the Foundation's laboratories, we carry out simple but significant activities such as singing, drawing, theater or sewing. Let's get to know them and get to know each other better. We share their pain and their desires.
In recent months, Linda's story has evolved: she has managed to do some small jobs from time to time. Now the challenge is that of autonomy. We gave her the opportunity to live with her boyfriend to learn how to manage a house and daily living. Our hope is that, as he grows up, he can improve, have some life motivation and find some serenity again.
From 9 to 13 July the partners of the "Erasmus+ Hero Housing: an educational European Road to civil rights" project will meet in Liverpool to develop tools for housing training in local communities.
The objective is to spread the culture of support for the housing of people with mental health problems.
The home and the experience of independent living are inalienable rights for which the collaboration of the territory is essential. Improving housing services through training courses also means dealing with ethical, cultural and economic sustainability aspects.
We need to build a European curriculum to help communities develop skills and competences in this field. Project partners have created proposals for training manuals which will be examined and developed in Liverpool. The next step will be to start piloting.
The Di Liegro Foundation, the Italian partner of the HERO project, in its very recent research "Care networks and mental distress. Users, families and mental health services in Rome" has highlighted how the theme of living is an important element for projecting oneself into the future. Among others, users who are currently in family homes and apartment groups or supported apartments were also interviewed. "When asked about their aspiration for a desired future location, the prevailing opinion was that of wanting to "go and live in my own apartment" (53%) or at most with other people (17.6%). Only 3% would like to return to their family in the future. It is clear that a path to recovery to a normal and inclusive life, despite the symptoms of the disease, passes through a project of independent living shared or not with others".
For more information visit the website: www.housing-project.eu.
