PROJECTS
AREA OF Minors, families and the territory

Centro per le famiglie

SUMMARY

The Centro per le Famiglie is a service that promotes parenting skills and, more generally, the welfare of families. It can also be a useful support to find proper tools to deal with moments of crisis or distress .

NAME OF THE PROJECT

The Centro per le Famiglie is a service created under the project "Adolescenti tra nuovi benesseri e vecchi disagi" (Adolescents between new and old discomfort) in ATI with the Association/non-profit organization La Tenda, the Il Cammino Cooperative, and the Parsec Social Cooperative.
Currently the service is provided within the framework of the project "Pinco Pallo" in ATI with the Association/non-profit organization La Tenda, the Cooperative Il Cammino, Cooperative New Sair, the Pandora Cooperative and Parsec Social Cooperative.

METHOD OF FINANCING

The project is part of the P.R.S. of IV Municipality (former V) and funded through the Funds of Law 328/00.  

AREA OF INTERVENTION

It is a centre for families and residents of IV Municipality. The premises are located in Piazza Sante Bargellini 13.

BRIEF HISTORY

Since 2001, the Centro per le Famiglie, within the project "Adolescenti tra nuovi benesseri e vecchi disagi" (Adolescents between new and old discomfort) has undergone several internal changes, as a result of the osmotic contact with the territory.
Hundreds of contacts in the field, with families, institutions, associations have, in turn, generated more contacts and made the Centre a landmark in the area. This space has increasingly defined itself over time, as an advisory service, giving psychological support and guidance to families. With the increase in the requests from local services to assist an ever-increasing number of families, the Centre has become more responsive to situations of risk and dysfunctional families. It started from mapping and prevention aimed at the welfare of families and has today become a service that has increasingly to deal with the emerging needs of a very broad and complex territory, where discomfort and malaise are in high increase, and where the need for interventions addressed to multi-problematic families is recognized. 

OBJECTIVES

The centre provides counselling and therapy to families who have at least one child, one adolescent or one young boy/girl.
Based on the interpretation of the discomfort brought by the families, the centre turns out to be a space for listening and support, particularly accessible in the territory. This is possible as requests for assistance are not only considered when selected by the services, but also when received spontaneously or by word of mouth through the visibility of the Centre's operators on the streets.

The work with the family is open to all its members and it also includes the participation of the families of origin. Besides promoting parenting skills and family welfare, the social workers must intervene in difficult situations, and thus assist the families in finding the tools to deal with crisis situations and conflicts.The service welcomes families, single-parent families, stepfamilies and immigrant families or mixed couples undergoing separation and homosexual couples.

We can state that the Centre plays a role of a "secure base" for families, in dealing with a "convalescence" phase and or with a growth which is not always easy.

METHODOLOGY OF INTERVENTION

The analysis of the users' expectations becomes peculiar for our work. It is particularly important to highlight the difference between requests coming from the Social Services, the TSRME, from DSM, the School or the private social sector or spontaneous requests.

The range goes from a request of "transformation of one's head" or "changing oneself" or more often "changing another person"; the requests are connoted by a lack of taking care of the problem and of a strong delegation.

Our methodology is based on the construction of a demand in which the objectives and methods of work are shared; from an operational point of view, we first explain the context in which we find ourselves; the attention is mainly directed to the person and the relationship that he/she proposes.

The guidelines are: who is sending? why now? design of treatment contract with the definition of objectives; is the issue readable from another perspective? where do we stand?

Home visits are useful for the Centre and this methodology is functional to create a more accessible experience of the family for the operator, thus reducing perceived distance from the family against the service. Home visits further enhance the knowledge of family life context in the early stages of the taking-in-charge, and they represent a monitoring tool in itinere and at the end of the support.

The need to comprehensively address a complex reality finds a theoretical framework in the systemic-relational model.

The systemic-relational model is based on the assumption that everything that happens is never separate from the context in which it occurs. The ability to observe the environment facilitates a creative, dynamic and open strategy to continued evolution. This is very important both in the context of the Centro per la Famiglia as well as in the territory in which we operate. The object of observation is not the person as an isolated entity but a system that takes shape through its relationships with others, and especially with the other meanings of the supra-system they belong to, i.e., in our case, the family.

The use of systemic strategies is useful in working with families, to set clear boundaries between the various subsystems, to learn to metacommunicate unspoken communication on the rules that govern the actions of the group. It is useful to work on expectations and challenge negative descriptions, caged within certain codes and stereotypical roles, and to create the conditions for an approach to the relationship that blurs old clichés, through the transmission of positive expectations that favour trust in people.

NETWORK AND TERRITORY

From an operational perspective, the activity of the Centro per la Famiglia is part of a horizontal (inherent to parallel programmes and/or proposals in progress) and vertical (relating to previous experiences and other services consulted) networking, as a valid instrument to counter the destiny of chronic users who are following a path of "pilgrimage" from the local services and repeated "drop-out".

This part of the work is always present for the whole period the family is taken care of by the service. Therefore, on one hand, we analyze the 'clinical' history of the family, and on the other, we focus on the territory and the personal resources. This method basically stems from a perspective focused on empowerment and not on the focus of the person's discomfort.

The meetings with the extended integrated working group (GIL), where all the actors of the territory are represented, and the families integrated working groups (GIL), where private social organizations dealing with families take part and where intervention plan in synergy with public services (ASL RMB - Social Service-USSM) are fundamental.

TOOLS AND ACTIVITIES

The interview remains our preferred solution; the verification of what we seek results from the report.

The dimension of the problems observed pertain to the "redefinition of boundaries within the family", "parenting skills", "distribution of power", "conflict marital or lack of them", and "communication problems."

The family story is reconstructed, in order to explain the present, and we focus on the moment of the life cycle that the family is experiencing. The life cycle is critical to re-describe the problems within a defined framework.

Besides the importance of the clinical interview, interactive games, role playing, and home visits are also used.

As for the preventive activity, the operators of the Centro Famiglie attend meetings with the schools addressed to students, teachers and parents, where movies are used as stimulus.  Debate and discussion are used to bring out the problems and the comparison can be useful to normalize the situation, or possibly to make a request for assistance to the Centre. These encounters can even create groups of children or parents, who then start a path with an operator of the service.

CONTACTS AND PROCEDURES FOR ACCESS

The first contact is a key moment and it is the instituting moment of the relationship between those who bring the demand and the psychologist of the centre. It is definitely the most important part of the work and the one to which we dedicate more attention and time. Contact can be made either by phone, either by chance, such as people entering because they are intrigued by the plaque outside the door, as well as by the transfer from other facilities (institutions or associations) or by word of mouth.

One can contact the centre by addressing:

• Centro per le Famiglie piazza Sante Bargellini 13, tel. (0039) 06 41735318, Coordinator: Dott.ssa Daniela Recchia tel. (0039) 348 3032070
• GIL del via Tiburtina 1163, assistente sociale Luigina Vaccaro,tel. (0039) 06 4102780

• Servizio Sociale via Tiburtina 1163, tel  (0039) 06 69605603
• TSRMEE di via di Pietralata tel (0039) 0641730041
• E-mail: cf_quintomunicipio@yahoo.it

THE TEAM

The team consists of:

• a manager, chairing the meetings and keeping institutional relations;
• a coordinator, which collects all the requests that come from the services and with the worki prepares a first hypothesis of intervention project;
• three psychotherapists who take charge of the family;
• the supervisor once a month helps the team work.

Psychologists and psychotherapists have specific experience in the field of childhood, adolescence, family relationships and the couple.

EVALUATION

A therapeutic contract is defined and it includes a timeframe for inspection (six months), the frequency of meetings and the objectives to be achieved.

The team compares the assumptions and evaluates the way the path is followed.

Progress tabs, team meetings and supervisions are used as monitoring tools; feedback from the family is collected and constant telephone follow-up of all the cases of the centre is made.

According to a monthly calendar, cases are discussed with the representatives of the Municipality and the ASL RMB and the general lines of action are defined. Also, the professional figures to be involved and their functions are identified; during the sub-team meetings with the institutional operators the therapeutic process is monitored.