Programmes

The programmes presented here are carried out directly by the Mental Health Department's OUs, either alone or in collaboration with other actors/agencies, and can involve all the organisational components of the MHD in transversal fashion. In each OU/service, one or more operators are designated as referents to participate in the meetings and coordination at the departmental level. These coordination mechanisms help create a common intent regarding the main issues involved and contribute to the continually improved quality of the programmes themselves. Some programmes were first initiated by the MHCs in the 1980s in order to deal with very general problems and issues, and then received a major new impetus and focus with the creation of the Healthcare Districts in the 1990s, while other projects have a more limited duration, and are implemented by one or more OUs, or by the MHD Adminstration staff.

District Mental Health Portals

Pursuant to Italian Law 328 (2000) for the creation of a fully integrated social welfare system, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region passed Regional Law 6/2006, which allocated funds for a "citizen's income" that guarantees equal opportunity for all of the Region's inhabitants.
In keeping with the Regional decisions and in order to facilitate access, integrate resources and broaden the range of responses, the MHCs have organised "mental healthcare portals" within the Local Healthcare Districts. With referrals by GPs or others, the Portals offer psychiatric counselling and intervene in cases involving persons who have difficulty accessing MHCs directly. The Portals also collaborate with the District services in "multi-problematic" situations that require integrated programmes: e.g. adolescents, handicapped persons, the elderly, persons with dependancy problems and persons with a psychiatric disorder together with major medical problems.
Described below are the main programmes in which the District Portals collaborate.

Micro-areas

Micro-areas is an experimental programme begun in 2004. Its aims are: verifying the state of health of residents within a specific and limited area and the practices of all the healthcare operators in that area, beginning with GPs; guaranteeing the right of access to services and the right to health; evaluating the appropriateness of responses and identifying waste; evaluating the risk of abandonment and medicalisation which transforms every human condition into an illness, and determining the level of full response by all the actors within a given area, from the healthcare operators to the needy citizen and his neighbour. Starting from the grassroots level with the participation of local citizens, Micro-areas seeks to enhance social wellbeing, providing the local population with all of the resources, skills and opportunities of the healthcare system and working towards a fuller integration of the healthcare and social welfare systems, thereby fulfilling the Local Healthcare Agency's mandate in a more complete and equal way. It therefore seeks to create a system of synergies and integrations around the person in need in order to compensate for the absence of responses, delays and lack of continuity. By working directly with the local population it becomes possible to revive and animate blighted urban areas, foster aggregation and generate continuity.
The main referent is the Healthcare District, its interconnected services and all the other services of the Local Healthcare Agency: the MHD, Substance Dependency and Prevention departments.
More specifically, Micro-areas seeks to:

1. acquire as much information as possible concerning the health problems of the persons living within the microarea;
2. optimise home care interventions, so that a person can receive all necessary care within their own home, thereby reducing institutionalisation;
3. ensure a more appropriate use of drugs;
4. ensure a more appropriate use of diagnostic services;
5. ensure a more appropriate use of therapeutic services (care and rehabilitation);
6. promote self-help and care by non-professionals (build communities);
7. promote collaboration among agencies and for-profit/non-profit associations and groups in order to enhance the wellbeing of the local population (mapping and development);
8. optimise coordination among different services that provide care/services for the same person or family;
9. promote equal access to services (more quality for more vulnerable citizens);
10. improve the quality of daily life for the most vulnerable persons, in order to provide a more active and independent life.

Each Healthcare District (4) has 2-4 microareas, with 1200-2500 persons in each area, resulting in a full cross-section of the population of the City of Trieste in terms of economics, age, ethnic origin etc.

Children and Adolescents

Mental Health Department
Via Weiss 5
Tel. 040 399 7360 - 040 399 7350
Fax 040 399 7363
e-mail: dsm@ass1.sanita.fvg.it

A group of operators from the various MHD OUs works in collaboration with the District teams responsible for children and adolescents:
Specifically, the group:

• provides prevention and support interventions to families in which the adults suffer from mental disorders;
• participates in integrated/network programmes aimed at persons in the formative years, especially adolescents with mental distress or a manifest mental disorder;
• contributes to programmes that seek to enhance the family as a resource and involve it directly in resolving its own difficulties.

Early intervention for psychosis in adolescents and young adults

Mental Health Department
Via Weiss 5
Tel. 040 399 7360 - 040 399 7350
Fax 040 399 7363
e-mail: dsm@ass1.sanita.fvg.it

This prevention project for the early recognition and network intervention on young people with the onset of psychosis provides for the involvement of all of the actors in the young person's life: friends, family and services. The project's activities are threefold:

• recognition
• therapy
• family support

In addition to direct actions aimed at the young person with the onset of psychosis, the recognition phase also seeks to involve operators of the social-healthcare services (including the Dependency Department) and associations/groups in the community. The goal is to provide all collaborators with the knowhow necessary in order to recognise the onset of psychosis, with subsequent referral to the services.
The programme is aimed at young people 16-30 who have developed psychotic-type behaviours and symptoms or serious personality disorders with the risk of psychosis.
Families are involved immediately and receive useful and pertinent information within 48 hours. A therapeutic intervention, both individual and family, is initiated with the young person, an antipsychotic drug is agreed upon and a rehabilitation and/or training programme begun. The therapy continues for at least 6 months, with observation for at least one year thereafter.
Both the young person and family members are invited to participate in a early onset of psychosis group (a new group starts up every 6 months).

Young People with Eating Disorders

Women's Mental Health Project
Androna degli Orti 4/B
(District 2 Family Counselling Centre)
Tel. 040 368 770 - 040 368780
e-mail: centro.donna@sanita.fvg.it

The prevalence of Eating Disorders among young people; the very negative impact of this Disorder upon the person involved and their family; the lack of early diagnosis; the difficulty in offering a coordinated and coherent response and the resulting referral to the private sector or to services outside of the Region: all of these factors led the Local Healthcare Agency Triestina n. 1 to deal with the problem of Eating Disorders in a much more capillary and integrated way. A multidisciplinary workgroup was therefore created in order to establish a network that would make for a much greater collaboration and interaction among the various professional figures within the Healthcare Agency, and between these professionals and other healthcare and social welfare agencies operating within the Province of Trieste.
A series of guidelines was established which, given the complexity of Eating Disorders, clearly define the nature of the services involved, the networking they engage in, how this network can be accessed and the special form of teamwork involved in dealing with individual cases.
The network also engages with other problem areas for adolescents, young adults and women, in order to implement common interventions strategies that promote cultural transformation, emancipation, personal growth and positive cultural values.
Special forms of access/care have been established for persons with Eating Disorders that involve all the community-based partners in planning, and include consultancy with an external nutritionist.
A prevention programme has also been created in order to inform and educate young people concerning this issue, together with various social-cultural initiatives to raise public awareness and educate the local population.

Persons with Handicap(s)

Residency and Rehabilitation Service
Via De Pastrovich 1
Tel. 040 399 7340
Fax 040 399 7382

Operators from MHD OUs work closely with the District teams assigned to this area to promote collaboration and exchanges within the community for persons with mental/physical handicaps. In particular, the programme provides for counselling, family programmes and crisis support.

Elderly persons in need of assistance

Mental Health Department
Via Weiss 5
Tel. 040 399 7360 - 040 399 7350
Fax 040 399 7363
e-mail: dsm@ass1.sanita.fvg.it

The programme aims at reducing/avoiding the risk of institutionalisation for elderly persons, especially if they live alone, have economic difficulties or are weak or vulnerable due to physical and mental problems. Operators intervene on a case by case basis and in widely diversified situations to carry out deinstitutionalisation programmes within nursing homes and other structures for the elderly, or to plan and implement prevention programmes. The programme seeks to improve:

• the care of elderly persons with mental problems/disorders;
• support to families/caregivers;
• rehabilitation programmes in the home/nursing facilities;
• the living conditions and relational network within nursing homes.

GPs as "health tutors"

Mental Health Department
Via Weiss 5
Tel. 040 399 7360 - 040 399 7350
Fax 040 399 7363
e-mail: dsm@ass1.sanita.fvg.it

The programme, which was first begun as an experiment in 1995, today constitutes a standard tool for improving the general health of MHD users who also have major medical problems or who, due to their mental disorder, neglect their own health or risk being ignored/overlooked by healthcare services. In collaboration with GPs, the programme seeks to:

• improve community and hospital healthcare for persons with mental disorders;
• reduce the frequency, duration and costs of hospitalisation;
• reduce the risk of disability/mortality resulting from malpractice involving persons with mental disorders;
• reduce the stigma and prejudice attached to mental illness among healthcare operators;
  Following the activation of Mental Healthcare Portals within the Districts, and in collaboration with the MHCs and GPs, it has become possible to enrich and develop the programme even further, such that the programme is now able to:
• deal with multi-problematic situations (adolescents, persons with handicaps, the elderly, persons with dependency problems) through integrated programmes within the Districts;
• provide consultancy and support to GPs in treating persons with anxiety syndrome, depression, sleeping disorders, psychosomatic disorders, alcohol abuse, etc.;
• provide early intervention for persons with previously unidentified psychiatric problems and/or persons who are reluctant to contact a MHC,

Improving care for persons with mental disorders and substance dependency

Mental Health Department
Via Weiss 5
Tel. 040 399 7360 - 040 399 7350
Fax 040 399 7363
e-mail: dsm@ass1.sanita.fvg.it

Dependency Department
P.le Canestrini 9
Tel. 040 399 7446 - 040 399 7367

Mental disorders are often complicated by dependency on drugs or alcohol, and viceversa. For this reason, the MHD and Dependency Department (DD) are committed both to coordinating their existing resources and services, and developing new approaches and workstyles that overcome rigid and often irrational mandates, and are based on the interchangeability/complementary support of equivalent professional figures working in a borderline area of mental-social distress, especially among young people.
The most common forms of collaboration are:

• diagnosis and prescription of drug therapies;
• nursing and intensive care during crisis (with hospitalisaton in the PDCS and/or day/night hospitality in a MHC);
• social reintegration programmes;
• support in accessing rights and social opportunities.

Work in Prison

Mental Health Department
Via Weiss 5
Tel. 040 399 7360 - 040 399 7350
Fax 040 399 7363
e-mail: dsm@ass1.sanita.fvg.it

This service was established in 1979, in order to provide prevention and care for persons suffering from mental distress/disorders during incarceration. Its aims are to:

• guarantee therapeutic continuity for incarcerated persons already being treated by the MHD;
• encourage the application of alternative measures to incarceration (external employment, day furloughs, parole with other agencies);
• prevent transfer to forensic hospitals.

It is especially important to note that the services do not limit their activities to specialised or consultancy services, but seek to respond to a wide range of needs of incarcerated persons with mental disorders, including:

• interventions within the prison itself, with the involvement of judicial/penal institutions in the therapeutic process;
• legal aid;
• economic assistance;
• contact with families;
• referral to support/rehabilitation programmes, both during and after incarceration, e.g. occupational training programmes, cultural activities and theatre workshop (Polytechnic - Day Centre).

The service can also recommend that the competent magistrate authorise "house arrest" for inmates in a MHC. This alternative to incarceration has proved itself to be extremely valuable for carrying out therapeutic-rehabilitative programmes and for avoiding incarceration in a forensic hospital (in the last 20 years, the average number of persons from the Province of Trieste incarcerated in a forensic hospital has not exceeded .5 per year).
The progamme collaborates with various healthcare/welfare services (services for adults and minors, Trieste social services) and volunteer groups. In addtion to MHC operators, the rehabilitation and social reintegration activities also involve the social coops and the Substance Dependency Department, which has its own specific prison programme.
The Legislative Decree of November 22, 1999 ("Penitentiary Medicine Reform") affirmed that prison inmates have the same right to "uniform and essential levels of prevention, diagnosis, care and rehabilitation provided for by the National Health Plans" as ordinary citizens. In a subsequent joint decree of the Health and Justice Ministries of April 21, 2000, the Penitentiary Mental Healthcare Goals Project was approved, designating the MHD as the proper structure for safeguarding and promoting the mental health of prison inmates, and authorising inmates to utilise all of the possibilities for care/rehabilitation guraranteed by local services. This Project confirmed the two decades of work carried out by the Trieste MHD and in July 2003 the Local Healthcare Agency and the local Prison administration emended their existing agreement. During 2005, the programme operators provided therapeutic continuity for 31 incarcerated persons with mental disorders, for a total of 91 visits.

Work with families

Mental Health Department
Via Weiss 5
Tel. 040 399 7360 - 040 399 7350
Fax 040 399 7363
e-mail: dsm@ass1.sanita.fvg.it

The programme was begun in 1987 in order to deal in a more structure, systematic way with the emotional problems and practical difficulties experienced by persons with a family member who has a severe mental disorder. Its main aims are to:

• educate family members regarding mental disorders and illness;
• raise awareness among family members regarding the irrational beliefs that often surround mental illness;
• provide opportunities for discussion in order to improve the communication and relations between families and services, with the gradual introduction of changes when needed.

In addition to the activities of each OU, each year the MHD offers an information programme of ten weekly thematic meetings. The meetings are led by service operators and provide an in-depth examination of the issues involved, in the belief that self-help and participation of family members contributes to better outcomes in the therapeutic-rehabilitative work. During the course of meetings evaluation/self-evaluation questionaires are presented, as well as informational literature. The programmes are generally reserved for parents of users, but other family members can also participate. Recently, a more intensive programme for the parents of young people experiencing the onset of illness has been created, with parents being encouraged to join the self-help group "We together" after completing the course.

Foster Homes for Adults

Mental Health Department
Via Weiss 5
Tel. 040 399 7360 - 040 399 7350
Fax 040 399 7363
e-mail: infermieristico.dsm@ass1.sanita.fvg.it

The project, which was inaugurated in Trieste in January, 2006, places adult users of the MHD in foster families. This practice, which is widely used internationally, derives from the tradition of pilgrims being hosted by local families in Geel, Belgium, which dates from at least the 7th Century A.D. The aim is to construct new social relations and promote the integration of persons in difficulty, while involving the community in therapeutic proceses and creating a new culture based on inclusion. The programme has strict guidelines regarding the candidates for placement, the characteristics of host families and their reimbursement, insurance for both guest and host families, etc.. The host family is chosen on the basis of informal discussions with the project team and undergoes a period of preparatory training. The family is not asked to function as a professional operator but to express its natural affection for the person they are hosting. During the period of "fosterage", the host family continues to be supported and aided by the project's multi-disciplinary team.

Healthcare Budget - Personalised Therapeutic-Rehabilitation Project

"Cantieri Sociali" - Pavilion M
Via De Pastrovich 1
Tel. 040 399 7340
Fax 040 399 7382
e-mail: segr.sar@ass1.sanita.fvg.it

The Healthcare Budget Programme - Personalised Therapeutic-Rehabilitation Project is for persons in contact with the MHCs who need a personalised rehabilitation programme in order to be able to fully exercise their fundamental rights (health, housing, education, training, social relations and employment). The Project is aimed at persons with complex needs and has a duration of a maximum of 48 months. It provides for the passage from one empowerment programme to another and/or the conclusion of the programme itself. For persons with particularly serious personal/social problems, the healthcare budget can be extended; however, such an extension must be accompanied by a change in goals and the development of new activities.
The Project utilises integrated interventions (mental healthcare services, the Districts, social services) and community resources (volunteers, social coops, associations, families), which are implemented as much as possible within the person's natural family, social and community context. Each personalised Project indicates types of needs, expected results, interconnectedness of interventions, resources required, professional and service responsibilities, timeframes and methods of verification. Its goals are: acquiring social roles and social empowerment, greater wellbeing and autonomy (habitat, relations, social life) through the acquisition of abilities and skills, participation in goal-oriented activities and the accessing and exercise of rights.
The Personalised Therapeutic-Empowerment Projects intervene simultaneously in the areas of housing, work and socialisation, which provide the foundation for an individual's social functioning and the indispensable social support for their negotiating power. The Healthcare Budget therefore aims at maintaining, re/constructing the social habitat, personal skills through occupational training and opportunities, and the re/acquisition of interpersonal and social ties. The Project also relies on verification and evaluation, in order to establish the appropriateness and consistancy of the activities carried out by partners and readjust intervention goals, actions and methods if necessary.

Self-help programmes

Via delle Beccherie 14/bTel. 040 365 687
Fax 040 347 3676
e-mail: clubzyp@virgilio.it
e-mail: polisportiva@hotmail.com

Over the past ten years, many self-help programmes have been developed which promote the participation of service users in clubs and associations. Participants are primarily young people who have/are experiencing difficult personal, family and social situations and who may therefore benefit from the forms of solidarity and socialisation provided by such groups. The main aim is to rediscover a sense of participation, breaking one's isolation and discovering the social dimension of the psychiatric problem. Each group is made up of persons with different backgrounds who together experiment with innovative forms of social solidarity that include musical, literary, ecological and sports workshops. Each year self-help groups organise training courses and encounters to increase self-awareness concerning not only personal problems, but also personal rights, and achieve empowerment in interpersonal/social relations. Specific groups for "people who hear voices" and "writing workshops" are also a feature. In recent years, sports activities have been become particularly important (see: Women's Mental Health Project, Club Zyp, Polisportiva "Fuoric'entro", Cagipota-Kazipot and "Luna e l'Altra")

Women's Mental Health Project

(District 2 - Family Counselling Centre)
Androna degli Orti 4/B
Tel. 040 368770 - 040 368780
e-mail: centro.donna@sanita.fvg.it

The project is a mental health prevention programme for women at risk, which also promotes general healthcare. The interventions deal with problems and difficulties that call for a wide range of responses and involve different disciplines and professional roles (and therefore operators from different services), with the use of informal and self-organised community resources (women's groups, associations, etc) whenever possible. The Women's Mental Health Project works alongside the Family Counselling Centre on particularly delicate issues, such as:

• periods of women's physiological life-changes (adolescence, risk pregnancy, abortion, the right to maternity for women with mental disorders, menopause, problems related to aging);
• situations in which accessing rights is difficult (immigration, prostitution, mental suffering) (link "Stella Polare");
• situations requiring specific therapeutic interventions and processes (Eating Disorders; severe distress due to grief/separation/loss; victims of physical/psychological violence; prison; family burden for women dealing with mental disorders and terminal illness).

Work groups made up of operators from various MHD OUs are organised to deal with these problems through discussion and cultural activities, and projects and practices integrated with the Family Counselling Centre and other actors. The responses focus on health rather than illness, and provide multiple forms of support and specific services in order to promote the recognition and awareness of each woman's own lifestory, resist the medicalisation of needs and provide opportunities for emancipation from situations of illbeing and suffering.

"Stella Polare" Project

(District 2 - Family Counselling Centre)
Androna degli Orti 4/B
Tel. 040 3481366
Cell. 339 858 7743
Fax 040 348 4316
e-mail: stellapolare.trieste@iol.it
Hours: Mon. - Fri. - 11 :00 - 14 :00
"Anti-racket" Project;
Toll-free number: 800 290290

A programme for immigrant women who are victims of violence and sexual exploitation, which implements the provisions of Art. 18 of the Immigration Act ("social protection" of victims of human trafficking and exploitation for sexual purposes) and is financed by the Equal Opportunity Department (Presidency of the Council of Ministers). The Project is managed by the Committee for the Civil Rights of Prostitutes, in collaboration with the Local Healthcare Agency and the City of Trieste. The main goal is to free immigrant prostitutes from all forms of coercion, aiding them in denouncing violence and exploitation and providing assistence to immigrant women involved in street prostitution or, in any case, who are victims of violence and exploitation. The project uses a mix of healthcare, psychological, legal and relational approaches/interventions which, in combination, provide "social protection". The social protection programmes are organised and run by a team of the Committee for the Civil Rights of Prostitutes, which consists of a director, two educators and a cultural mediator, and also utilises healthcare/social operators when necessary.
The Project's main activities are:

• placing women who want to abandon prostitution in shelters/apartments;
• supporting access to community healthcare/social services, with the identification of operators in the various services who are especially sensitive to these issues;
• creating personalised occupational training projects thatt utilise occupational training grants made available by the MHD (3 annually) and the City of Trieste, and which aim at eventual fulltime employment;
• preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and abortions through the promotion of contraceptives, both for women in the Project as well as working prostitutes. The street unit, which collaborates with healthcare operators, contacts prostitutes in an informal manner on the street in order to provide useful and effective prevention information;
• organising public meetings in order to inform and discuss the phenomenon of prostitution, promote mutual understanding and fight against racism and exclusion.

"Amalia - Special Phone" Project

Toll-free number: 800 846079

In Trieste, there is a substantial population of elderly (and very elderly) persons who often live in conditions of solitude and social isolation. Historically, Trieste has also had a suicide rate well above the national average (from 1986-1996 >22/100,000), and which is closer to the rates in Central European countries. To deal with this situation, in 1996 the MHD, together with the Local Healthcare Agency, the City of Trieste and a private call-centre (Televita srl) decided to start-up a prevention programme aimed at reducing the social isolation of the elderly and suicidal behaviours.
The "Special Phone" Project provides for a "listening point" (ie. a 24hr toll-free number linked to the network of social services) to monitor the needs expressed by persons at risk. In order to promote a different approach and raise awareness concerning this issue, a multidisciplinary team was also formed with the aim of activating "diffused sensors", made up of representatives of various associations, volunteer groups and the media. The programme carries out information campaigns, including articles in the local press, and posters and other informational initiatives among specific local population groups and professional categories. An observatory was also created which, in close contact with other agencies, monitors suicides on a monthly basis. After 7 years of activity, the suicide rate has dropped to <18/100,000.
Closely integrated with the "Special Phone" Project, the "Amalia" Project was created in order to reduce the social isolation and solitude of elderly persons, and fight against the phenomenon of lonely deaths. The Project's goals are:

• encouraging socialisation among lonely, elderly persons, and promoting forms of direct support or reconstructing relational networks and exhanges ("Club Amalia"; the organisation of events, meetings, parties);
• integrating resources aimed at the person through the collaboration of various agencies that work with the elderly;
• involving associations, volunteer groups and the media in order to inform and create awareness concerning this issue.

Elderly persons are generally involved in the Project at the request of families, operators or friends and acquaintences. The elderly person is contacted on a daily basis by Televita operators in order to evaluate health conditions and needs, and activate responses (home visits by volunteers in order to help with daily tasks; involvement of GPs to verify drug therapies; contact with pharmacies for the home delivery of medicine, etc.). As of December 2004, after 5 years of activity, 2344 elderly men and women had participated in the Project. During the same period, lonely deaths dropped markedly, from 19 in 1999 to 7 in 2005.

"Alzheimer" Project

Mental Health Department
Via Weiss 5
Tel. 040 399 7360 - 040 399 7350
Fax 040 399 7363
e-mail: infermieristico.dsm@ass1.sanita.fvg.it

With a project called "Can a family support network reduce the family burden for Alzheimer", the Local Healthcare Agency wanted to create an integrated services network which, utilising the Districts, would support patients and their families in dealing with the problems related to this serious illness. Particular attention was given to training courses, first for operators and then for families and caregivers, and the production and distribution of informational material. The basic conviction behind this initiative is that providing strong support to families/caregivers can reduce the consequences of dementia. Collaborating with the Districts are GPs, the MHD and Psychiatric Clinic, as well as the Trieste Social Services and various associations, especially the "De Banfield Foundation", which was already active in this area. The project is experimental and was financed for the first 3 years by the Health Ministry. Services can be requested in any of the 4 Healthcare Districts.

"Cassiopea" Theatre/Crafts Workshop Project

Via De Pastrovich 1
Tel. 040 302556
e-mail: info@cassiopeateatro.it
http://www.cassiopeateatro.it

The theatrical group was founded in 2001, as an offshoot of the training project for women suffereing from mental disorders/distress "Passing Through". It produced two plays: "Passing through" and "Women's Circus", which were presented in various cities in Italy. The project also sponsored a "Body Expression and Theatre Workshop" for both Service users and local women, which aimed at stimulating the rediscovery and valuing of women's bodily image and being. The theatre group, which is currently being converted into a coop, also has a workshop for dressmaking and costume design for Service users.

"Academy of Madness" Theatre Workshop Project

(Polytechnic)
Pavilion M
Via De Pastrovich 1
Tel. 040 3997346
Bilding H Via Bottacin 5
Tel. 040 3997345
Fax 0541 622211
e-mail: cinziaquintiliani@libero.it
http://www.accademiadellafollia.it

The Academy of Madness was founded in 1976, during the height of the deinstitutionalisation experience, by professional madmen and aspiring actors. Over the years it has presented more than 50 theatrical productions, organised congresses and made numerous films, videos and documentaries, also in collaboration with the Italian state television, RAI 3. The Academy offers its "mad actors" the possibility of sharing artistic practices and existential projects, life itineraries and transformations of the day to day, ways of experiencing suffering, pieces of a journey taken together, experimentation, departures and returns, life-stories, knowledge, experiences, practices, theories and techniques, theatrical methods and research, quality processes and products and the production of ideas. It is a place where people invent in order to live, and live to invent. It is a polyphony of identities in which the undiscovered diffused intelligence of individuals can give value to mutual differences. It is a common search for taking care of oneself, places, theatre, others. It is coming together, listening, telling; narrating the ability to exist and produce synergies through diversity, telling our stories and putting them on stage.

"Radio Fragola" Social Communication Project

Via De Pastrovich 1
Tel./Fax 040 54659
http://www.radiofragola.com

This radio station, which is accredited with the MHD, first went on the air from the San Giovanni compound in 1984. Its programming focuses on social communication and prevention, and fights against stigma and social exclusion through the first-person accounts and involvement of its guests and collaborators. As part of "La Piazzetta" social coop, it promotes social integration programmes for young people in difficulty.