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Nord Est
The North Zone Residential Community of Emergency Response
SUMMARY
The North East Community, funded by the City of Rome, is residential and is aimed at people with addiction problems who have decided to stop the consumption of psychotropic substances. During their stay in the Community, the residents can scale down on methadone or other substances (medication, psychotropic drugs, ...) according to a plan set by the doctor of SerT, which is sent and monitored by the same doctor and the operators of the Community. The service accommodates people for a maximum of three months, who have as their objective, in addition to the scaling down of substances, the subsequent insertion into a therapeutic programme (entry into the community in the long term, re-employment, outpatient therapeutical support...). The Community supports the individual paths and the group of guests through sharing the daily management of community life (cooking, cleaning, gardenening ...), assessment groups and the constant verification of the path of the individuals.
NAME OF THE PROJECT
North East, Residential Community for Emergency Response North Rome
RECIPIENTS
People with drug-related problems
METHOD OF FINANCING
Funded by: The City of Rome - Municipal Agency for Drug
AREA OF INTERVENTION
The community is located in a rural area on the Flaminia in the Castel Nuovo di Porto (Rome) zone and only welcomes people who are residents in the municipality of Rome.
BRIEF HISTORY
The North East Community was created about 16 years ago to expand the range of services for people with drug-related problems. At that time, the phase of detoxification was poorly protected and communities did not welcome people taking methadone (there are still many facilities that are dedicated exclusively without medication or with low doses). This was outlined as a limit considering the obvious difficulty in obtaining a drug-free condition for people sufficiently motivated to undertake a therapeutical procedure.
A residential facility, able to accommodate users who were scaling down on methadone, made up for the lack of offers.
Initially, the Community was financed under the Law 309/90, subsequently funded by the Department of Social Services and Promotion of Health of the City of Rome, then, in 2000, funded by the Municipal Integrated Services for Drug Addiction.
Community activities began in December 1995, after a long search for a suitable place, in a villa near Mentone, welcoming the first visitors. In April 1998, having found an even more suitable facility, surrounded by a lot of land and further away from the city centre, the Community has moved to its present location on the Via Flaminia, in the town of Castel Nuovo di Porto.
OBJECTIVES
The primary goal is the transition from one phase of addiction to a withdrawal through the monitored and controlled scaling of methadone and medication. A further layer consists of attempting to achieve work objectives agreed from the constraints and resources of each person.
In general it can be said that the North-East could mean the place in which persons regain awareness of their drug-free identity, their personal and family problems, their own history, the place in which, in daily activities and in more structured and clinical spaces, the individual gets the first and important feedback on their motivation and their own personal resources, relationships and work. With the operators and within the group of residents, the user is working on more fragile aspects of themselves, in order to build strategies that can help him/her to gradually rediscover dormant resources, forgotten capacity, unexpected possibilities and to sustain relations with the external and tiring transformative experience that awaits him/her and that is already underway.
From all of this, the working team, together with the guest, construct his/her future projects or how to continue his/her journey after detoxification.
The possible routes are obviously different. In fact the person, after detoxification, can:
• Continue his/her path within a residential community in the medium-long term.
• Return to his/her membership with the daily support of a day care centre.
• Return to his/her membership with a weekly outpatient support
METHODOLOGY OF INTERVENTION
North East is one of the services that is offered at the initial stage on the path to recovery for the user. It is primarily a service of detoxification and, as such, is the prior stage compared to that which is strictly therapeutical.
The service takes care of all the psycho-physical problems that arise during the different scaling down of the drug to which the user is subject to. More generally it deals with the global project of change of the person, defining objectives and milestones with him/her, checking every day making it the protagonist of his/her course of treatment. The approach that the service adopts towards these patients is not to focus on the symptom of the person. In fact the global share of the psychic dimension becomes substantiated, trying to highlight the constraints and resources, building a space together within which to promote and develop awareness, autonomy, and the possibility to choose.
Over time, within this framework, the problem with the substance use becomes increasingly marginal and leaves more room for the chance for the person to be different and to integrate, towards himself/herself and to his/her plan of life, promoting the processes of change by facilitating it in order to be in touch with his/her interactive world, his/her internal and external conflicts, anxieties, resources and time.
1. The work begins with initial talks and continues with residence in the Community where, within a framework composed of activities, rules, groups, surveys, educational psychology experience, clinical interviews, the user builds the possibilities from which to choose.
TOOLS AND ACTIVITIES
The operators are responsible for the stay of the user, from his/her time of entry until he/she leaves. Each operator, at the beginning of the path of the user, makes a careful analysis of what the resources are, as well as the limitations of each one. He/she helps the user to define the goals of functional work.
The construction of a therapeutical alliance with the mechanisms used is a starting point aimed at establishing and computing the change processed.
The main mechanisms through which he/she operates are:
• Clinical interview (the affected areas - emotional, cognitive-perceptual, relational)
• Groups (support-assessment, experiential, daily check, organizational)
• Managing relationships with family members
• Organizing time (working, drafting the monthly magazine, workshops, arranging free-time).
NETWORK AND TERRITORY
Working closely with the network of local services that deal with addictions and more is essential. The network of the North-East Community belongs to any public or private entity that could bring benefits for the effectiveness of its own work (Ser.T., residential therapeutic communities, day centres, family therapy organizations, counselling etc.). Today, the work of the network sees the facility engaged with the services of the entire Italian territory, with which there are exchanges and continuous contact.
In particular :
• Relations with all the public Services for Drug Addiction of the Roman territory
• Relations with the public Service for Drug Addiction of ASL RMF (Capena)
• Relations with low, medium and high threshold day and night centres
• Relations with the Community
• Relations with DSM and hospitals
CONTACTS AND PROCEDURES FOR ACCESS
Tel. 0039 06 86209991
E-mail: info@cooperativaparsec.it
The indispensable element for the possibility of access to the Community is that the person is resident in the municipality of Rome. Admission is also bound to a series of talks aimed at helping the user to build his/her course of treatment.
The person comes into contact with the Service through three main ways: through the public service, through the private social service or directly. Once the contact is made, the user is added to a waiting list and contacted as soon as possible.
In initial talks the needs of the user and the opportunity of his/her inclusion in the North-East is evaluated (assessment).
The reception and the timing for entering into the service differ from person to person and are monitored weekly through weekly interviews and telephone communication. In addition clinical analysis requests are necessary to safeguard the health of the group of residents and operators of the facility and in order for the user to begin to look after himself/herself.
The discussions and the timeframe for entry into the service specifically take place in the registered office of the Parsec Social Cooperative (Rome), the place is most easily reached through the different public transport systems.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
The Community team intervenes by way of a shared and integrated workspace and uses the expertise of professional psychotherapists, psychologists, doctors, professional educators/trainers and social workers.
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 the achieved objectives) monitoring. Periodical checks are also carried out through internal monitoring on the expected objectives achieved.
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