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The First Welcoming Day Centre - Scarpanto
The Day Centre Scarpano is a low threshold welcoming centre that is funded by the Lazio region, giving support to people with drug-related problems by offering them an alternative to the circuits of exclusion in which they are usually included. The intervention strategy is to reduce the damage caused. The Centre, as well as offering basic services (a welcoming area; needle exchange, distribution of condoms, overdose intervention, information about substances and sexually transmitted diseases, medical advice, legal services, dispatch services, lunch, shower facilities….), is giving the chance to support, give answers and encouragement that occur in a way more or less showing the need for change and a liberation from substance use. For this purpose the ‘second level’ is the service that gives advice on the development of individual projects, psychological support, information and prevention groups on risk behaviour, and social training workshops.
NAME OF THE PROJECT
The first welcoming day centre - Scarpanto 

RECIPIENTS
Direct recipients: people with drug problems. Family members.
Indirect recipients: social-territorial and health facilities. Citizens in general.
METHOD OF FINANCING
Funded by: the Lazio region
Legal reference: National Fund for Combatting Drugs (DPR 309/90)
AREA OF INTERVENTION
ASL RM 1 of the city of Rome (although the service is accessible throughout the city of Rome)
BRIEF HISTORY
The first interventions on ‘Harm Reduction’ aimed at drug addicts in the area of Rome began in the early 90s, as a result from the crucial need to provide services and support to addicts who continued to use psychotropic drugs, particularly by injecting heroin (i.e. active drug users).
The main objectives were, in fact, to reduce the spread of deaths from the HIV virus and overdoses. A new policy of access to services called "low-threshold" was promoted, so that people can use the services offered by the Road Unit and Day and Night Centres, regardless of their state of abstinence or use of abusive substances and without any major bureaucratic process. The project of the First Welcoming Day Centre – Scarpanto – has been active since 1994, and has since been an essential part of the network of intervention services for drug addiction in the city of Rome and, specifically, in the area of Asl Rm A (I, II, III and IV districts).
OBJECTIVES
The main objective of the First Welcoming Day Centre – Scarpanto is to contact and accommodate drug addicts to offer services that will improve the living conditions of drug users or those who are in need of drugs. These services will help to contain the spread of HIV, sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis, TB; will reduce deaths resulting from overdoses and will increase the chances of survival. It will provide a network of services that are more easily accessible and encourage and stimulate individual abilities, on a psycho-social relational level (empowerment), enabling greater awareness and change. The ultimate goal is taking care of the person with the aim of promoting resources and building individual projects.
Support is also extended to the families of drug addicts by offering them the possibility to break the social isolation (in which the use of substances has confined the family unit) through sharing and comparing their experiences with others.
METHODOLOGY OF INTERVENTION
The First Welcoming Day Centre – Scarpanto - is a low threshold welcoming service holding activities such as the exchange of sterile syringes, interventions in cases of overdose, primary services such as lunch, shower facilities and washing machines, There are also more coordinated interventions such as workshops, discussions, dispatch, which give drug addicts the chance to unite within a protected space other than the street or their usual circuits of marginalization, and offering them the opportunity to experiment in different ways and away from the typical dynamics of their condition. The space offered by the Day Centre is therefore an educational, pedagogical one, not random, that sets objectives, using the relationship between the user and the operator, built and mixed within specific and structured contexts, as a vector facilitating the activation of skills and psychological resources of the person It is therefore an implicitly therapeutic facility that can lead, even those who have not so far matured in the decision to stop the use of drugs, to the development of a project of emancipation from addiction.
TOOLS AND ACTIVITIES
It is through the provision of basic services and/or sterile material that one begins to establish the first crucial contact with the person. Over time, this usually evolves into a more stable and structured relationship, with confidence to empower oneself in order to be able to call for help and offer support towards a new life project. Therefore, the services proposed constantly support and strengthen a message of protecting and caring for oneself, through the satisfaction of the basic need of nourishing oneself or the practical need of obtaining sterile instruments, as well as developing the insight of the risks to one’s own body and one’s own health and enabling the new process of awareness.
The services offered are:
• A welcoming area;
• Needle exchange;
• Distribution of condoms;
• Intervention in the case of overdose;
• Information about substances, HIV, hepatitis;
• Social health counselling;
• Dispatch services;
• Medical advice;
• Legal advice;
• Lunch, showers, washing machines;
• Advice and guidance on identifying needs and managing therapeutic projects;
• Psychological support;
• Information and prevention about behaviour towards risks;
• Creative workshops (cinema, painting, music therapy);
• Social training workshops (the use of the services, reading newspapers, how to write a resumé, how to prepare for a job interview....);
• Support group for parents.
NETWORK AND TERRITORY
The Centre has always promoted an activity that would facilitate setting a foundation at different levels of intervention on its own territory. In this regard a rich network of contacts, representing the daily dialogue of service, has been activated. With public and private institutions that deal with addiction (Ser.T., therapeutic communities, municipalities, social services ...), the dialogue is continuous both for taking care of the patients (ie, for the construction of individual projects related to each individual person ) and for sharing cultural thoughts linked to our activities. Of equal importance are the contacts with a local network, more informal by nature, (i.e. the committee of the district, citizens’ associations, Banca del Tempo, leisure centres ...). These contacts have been built up over time and have often become an additional resource for the project.
CONTACTS AND PROCEDURES FOR ACCESS
The service is situated in Via Scarpanto 49/55, Rome
Tel: (0039) 06.817 44 25/6
e-mail: info@cooperativaparsec.it
People can freely access the service from Monday to Friday from 13.00 to 19.00 hours and Saturdays from 10.00 to 16.00 hours. Anyone can access the service, even if under the influence of drugs. The right to anonymity is guaranteed.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
The team of the Day Centre intervenes by way of a shared and integrated workspace and uses the expertise of professional psychotherapists, psychologists, doctors, professional educators/trainers. It consists of a manager, six operators, a supervisor, and consultants for training and evaluation.
EVALUATION
The assessment is made by the client through a system of quantitative (numerical evaluation boards) and qualitative (reports with achieved objectives) monitoring. Periodical checks are also carried out through internal monitoring on the expected objectives achieved between the team, the service manager and the contact area.
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