Supporting a Day-care Service for Youth at Risk of School Drop-out and Violent Behavior

Project location: ITALY, Rome
Project start date: August 2009 - Project end date: August 2010
Project number: 2009-31
Beneficiary: Centro Italiano di Solidarietà


 CeIS headquarters
CeIS headquarters

The grant awarded by the Nando Peretti Foundation aims to provide an educational environment that, through formal and informal situations, facilitates the processes of socialization, motivation and learning dedicated to young people at risk of school drop-out, drug use, violence, behaviours at risk of deviance, particularly bullying. The methodology that will be used in the project is the theoretical approach "analysis of demand", based on analysis of the application as a practical intervention. Assessing in this way the real needs and potentials of the individual this approach will be useful for youth, and for the planning of their training or recovery support and education.
The projects aims at establishing a relationship of trust, positive reassessment of institutional contexts, including school and family when available. Also, this approach will facilitate, for the young, the process of motivation and skills through learning situations both formal and informal, involving them in the organization and structuring the various activities.

Among the activities planned:
  • Activities of animation in the socio-cultural context in order to stimulate communication and relationship; fun activities to experience the game and its meaning:  language,  competitiveness,  roles, cooperation, laboratory activities to stimulate creativity and highlight the abilities of the individual;
  • Group activities to facilitate socialization and stimulate a critical sense.
  • Sports activities.
  • Supporting activities and recovery conducted by volunteer teachers who, trained, working with the CEIS for several years, have developed and tested methods aimed at young people in conditions of hardship.
  • Talks, evaluation-oriented, to understand the young people individually, and the possible reasons that led to have a behavior at risk.
  • Activity of counselling in itinere
  • Activities of psychological support where indicators of discomfort show they are needed.
  • Basic computer courses and English, conducted in collaboration with the Centro Territoriale di Ciampino.
  • Cultural activities such as trips and movies.
There are also supporting activities aimed at families of users, wherever possible and necessary, for greater awareness about their role as parental educators.
The activities will use an integrated multidisciplinary team consisting of psychologists, social workers,  teachers in charge of the Ministry for Education sent to the CEIS and teachers volunteers.

One of the more obvious difficulties that young people face, can be seen on the high rate of school dropout, drug use, behaviour at risk of deviance as bullying which highlight the general issue that each institution faces in managing and containing the various forms of discomfort, while creating a kind of distrust of the young towards the institutions themselves. This state of affairs in adults also fosters the vision of the young man as a mere consumer of goods and not as the bearer of social and individual resources. Based on these considerations, it is easy to identify the youth as the weak link of the company, the group most exposed to generational processes of loss of identity and disorientation in behaviours and in cultural references and values.

Working with adolescents, in collaboration with the educational agencies of the area, it has been noted that the drop-out education / training, low levels of access to employment, the lack of familiarity with the tools guidance determine the risk especially in critical moments of transition from one educational cycle to another, pushing the young man in a sort of incipient deviance that occurs with the use of substances and violence (bullying). In this phase, which is crucial for the development of the social identity, the young often find themselves without means and unable to design a plan of life, and therefore training.
Moreover, for some youth, particularly disadvantaged (multi-problem families, degraded neighbourhoods, immigrants, etc..) the risk of removal and / or exclusion from the circuit training is growing significantly, exacerbating an already precarious personal and social situations.

The Centro Italiano di Solidarietà - CEIS, founded by Don Mario Picchi in 1971, has matured in its four decades of activity, a remarkable amount of experience in the field of treatment and rehabilitation of persons at risk of social exclusion.
In recent years, the CEIS was able to experiment ways of working and intervention in the area of adolescence, to enable diversified services for young people in relation to their specific needs Since 1991 CEIS created in close collaboration with institutions of education (Ministry of Education and "Provveditorato agli Studi" of Rome) the "Koinè".
The objectives of the "Koinè" have always focused on the prevention and integration between therapeutic reality and school. "Koinè" is a greek word to indicate a common language that pays transversely attention to young people in all their spheres like family, schools an free time.
The "Koinè", aimed at teenagers at risk of dropping out, alcoholism and abusing drugs, has developed both intervention and prevention activities in schools through the use of a methodology focused on the integration of responses in relation to the complexity of the needs of youths (family, school, leisure). The network made with the major educational agencies and the development of significant experience in training in schools (updating for teachers, establishment and support of services of guidance and counselling, courses for teachers on secondment and contact persons, interventions to prevent burn-out of teachers, provision of information, prevention and animation), allowed the "Koinè" to grow and diversify operations by implementing more and more specific answers to the needs. Currently, the CEIS is entered in the roster of the Ministry of Education as a provider of training for teachers in schools of all levels at risk situations (burn-out etc.) and has in charge 9 teachers seconded. From the natural evolution of "Koinè", CEIS has created and developed the following services: Service "Eco" aimed at adolescents and young people who have problems of psycho-emotional nature, "Mentore" as a day-care center structured and organized to respond in a complete and comprehensive way to the needs and requests received from the territory, dealing with youths that includes the school, family and environmental problems, "Gulliver" that deals with prevention, training, guidance, counselling and psychological support directly into the schools of Rome and its province, Service Area Youth "dedicated to boys immigrants condition or at risk of school drop-out or in training .. The CEIS since 2002 is also accredited to the City of Rome as a member organization to take care of children. In recent years, there are many projects locally and nationally implemented by CEIS to counter young discomfort.
Those are some among the most important projects that CEIS has established in the area of youths:

  • "Mentor, the other school" in collaboration with the Ministry for Education Research University;
  • "Hamelin" in collaboration with Regione Lazio;
  • "Adolescents at risk" in collaboration with Department of Social Affairs of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers;
  • the project "Actions to reduce the school drop out" in collaboration with the Municipality of Rome;
  • "Out Door" in collaboration with the Province of Rome;
  • "Ride for the Future" in collaboration with Regione Lazio;
  • "Dispersion School" in collaboration with the Province of Rome;
  • "Superpippo" in collaboration with Regione Lazio;
  • "Mentoring" in collaboration with the Municipality of Rome;
  • "Youth Space" in collaboration with the Municipality of Rome;
  • "Gulliver School" in collaboration with the Province of Rome;
  • "Diogenes" in collaboration with the Province of Rome;
  • "Eta Beta" in collaboration with the foundation UNIDEA; (Unicredit Bank)
  • "Fandango" in collaboration with the foundation Compagnia di San Paolo;
  • "Welcome" in collaboration with the Province of Rome;
  • "Why not" in collaboration with the Ministry for Education Research University;
  • "Diogenes 2" in collaboration with Interior Ministry.

 

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