The Starry Sky Pavilion is a micro community that can accommodate up to 6 women in situations of extreme vulnerability who need a period of assistance and help at 360 degrees. The Pavilion offers the possibility of having a single room with all the necessary services to "feel at home" and to sharing common spaces – such as the kitchen – with people in the same situation.
Local
Italy
Lombardy and city of Milan
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-04-30
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Opera Cardinal Ferrari Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Pasquale Last name of representative: Seddio Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: President Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Giovanni Battista Boeri 3 Town: Milan Postal code: 20141 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 02 846 7411 E-mail:amministrazione@operacardinalferrari.it Website:https://www.operacardinalferrari.it
The "Starry Sky" micro-community project offered a safe and secure living environment, capable of supporting a social path for 7 women in difficulty. The housing experimentation was aimed at promoting personal identification and the autonomy of people, to promote their social inclusion, through participation and integration with the territory.
The recipients of the service were 7 adult women in conditions of fragility and vulnerability who, already in charge of the territorial services, were going through a moment of difficulty primarily due to social and housing hardship for which the reporting service of the Municipality of Milan identified, through an individualized project, in the micro-community service, the suitable tool so that, with temporary accompaniment and adequate support for a defined period (about 18 months), it was possible to undertake the path towards autonomous management of one's life.
The service, in addition to responding to the housing need, guaranteed the assistance of the beneficiary in the re-elaboration of his own experience, in order to verify the stability with respect to the skills implemented. The implemented activities were the following:
- residential reception 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in housing units furnished and equipped with everything necessary for living;
- educational accompaniment: orientation/accompaniment to local services and support in the presentation of bureaucratic procedures (registry procedures, social housing applications, etc.); education in housing and cohabitation; support in job search/maintenance; support in finding a home; support and accompaniment when leaving temporary residency; promotion of socialization and aggregation activities for the construction/maintenance of a network of formal and informal relationships in the area and mediation of any conflicts in the new contexts of integration of the beneficiaries.
RECEPTION: in a qualified place and with the presence of qualified personnel
LISTENING: of each person starting from their life experience and specific on manifest and latent needs
CO-PLANNING: of the intervention for and with each beneficiary through an individualized educational project that is clear, evaluable and congruent with the needs of the person
ORIENTATION: of the person on internal and territorial resources aimed at social reintegration
AUTONOMY: as the objective of the intervention for the acquisition of those social, economic and housing skills which have proved to be useful for the positive conclusion of the project
The temporary residence intervention was aimed at promoting the autonomy of individuals within a context of sharing and participation in daily activities.
It was a limited space over time (18/24 months) that made it possible to achieve the following objectives:
• Respond to housing needs;
• Promote and support individual autonomy;
• Promote skills in managing everyday life;
• Enhance and strengthen personal resources with a view to social integration;
• Promote the identification of work and housing solutions.
The temporary residence intervention was aimed at promoting the autonomy of individuals within a context of sharing and participation in daily activities.
It was a limited space over time (18/24 months) that made it possible to achieve the following objectives:
• Respond to housing needs;
• Promote and support individual autonomy;
• Promote skills in managing everyday life;
• Enhance and strengthen personal resources with a view to social integration;
• Promote the identification of work and housing solutions.
A two-story structure consisting of:
1. Kitchen
2 bathrooms
3. Laundry
4. 7 rooms
The structure entirely in masonry has large windows that allow the people hosted to be able to continue both day and night to see the sky and the stars.
An architectural intervention aimed at keeping guests in contact with nature as much as possible, also through the choice of furnishings
1.Observation: an experimentation period of 20 days was carried out at the entrance which allowed the person to verify their adaptation and, at the same time, allowed the operators to understand any problems;
2. Evaluation: the educator has organized a moment of comparison and evaluation with the person and with the co-inhabitants;
3. Final insertion: the guest has been inserted and the first tasks concerning the co-management of the rooms have been assigned.
4. Implementation of the co-housing project: with regard to community life and in parallel with the implementation of the individual educational project, the individual management activities of the common spaces were assigned and divided among the guests: cleaning, cooking, tidying up, participation group activities, moments of sharing and periodic verification).
As far as the second area is concerned, the beneficiaries, in collaboration with the sending social services, were oriented and accompanied towards the use of local services in order to achieve the various objectives of autonomy. Accompaniments carried out at both public and private employment centers have made it possible to undertake active job search paths; accompaniments towards private social training centers have made it possible to improve both the knowledge of the Italian language and the awareness of the need for specific training courses which subsequently open up concrete job opportunities. The knowledge of the territorial associations has allowed us to know the territorial resources suitable for the autonomous construction of the formal and informal network to which each beneficiary has turned in case of need.
The temporary residential intervention was aimed at promoting the inclusion of individual beneficiaries both in the co-housing experience within the micro-community and within the territorial context within which the project takes place is developed.
As regards the first area, the inclusion process started through joint work between the beneficiaries and the professional educator. In particular, the following phases were followed for each person:
1. Observation: an experimentation period of 20 days was carried out at the entrance which allowed the person to verify their adaptation and, at the same time, allowed the operators to understand any problems;
2. Evaluation: the educator has organized a moment of comparison and evaluation with the person and with the co-inhabitants;
3. Final insertion: the guest has been inserted and the first tasks concerning the co-management of the rooms have been assigned.
4. Implementation of the co-housing project: with regard to community life and in parallel with the implementation of the individual educational project, the individual management activities of the common spaces were assigned and divided among the guests: cleaning, cooking, tidying up, participation group activities, moments of sharing and periodic verification).
As far as the second area is concerned, the beneficiaries, in collaboration with the sending social services, were oriented and accompanied towards the use of local services in order to achieve the various objectives of autonomy. Accompaniments carried out at both public and private employment centers have made it possible to undertake active job search paths; accompaniments towards private social training centers have made it possible to improve both the knowledge of the Italian language and the awareness of the need for specific training courses which subsequently open up concrete job opportunities. T
The involvement of the local social services of the municipality was developed through the establishment of a control room to which the social workers of the area services belonged. The work of the control room played a fundamental role both in the identification and subsequent reporting of the project user, but also and above all in the construction of the individual interventions of the beneficiaries included.
The added value was represented by a co-planning and co-responsibility of the various taking charge. The process of project implementation, evaluation and subsequent realignments has allowed for a functional synergy between the various public and private social services, making the work carried out with the beneficiaries more efficient and effective.
To create reception facilities intended only for women, for create protected situations that protect them from their experiences of violence
and abuse, where women find a place of respite;
- structuring modules for women victims of violence and trauma, who can support them with specialist care;
- pay particular attention to the care of the self and the body as action of reconstruction of a female condition;
- pay particular attention to care actions using an approach integrated between substance abuse treatment actions, per mental problems and trauma
- collaborate with the network of anti-violence centers for the construction of
- dedicated actions and consultancy services
In the 2020/2021 project reference period, 9 women in a state of fragility were welcomed, all with social needs related to job-search accompaniment, continuous sources of income and in need of housing.
Particularly:
1. a beneficiary moved independently near Rome to a rented house. An accompaniment project was implemented with this person, useful for strengthening some technical and professional skills necessary for finding a part-time job and a savings plan useful for renting a house;
2. three beneficiaries concluded the accompaniment process early by finding a bed independently after achieving the objective of requesting basic income;
3. thanks to the support work on the bureaucratic process, three beneficiaries obtained the assignment of public houses;
4. A beneficiary was transferred to another night shelter project following the complexity of the psycho-social situation, but is still monitored within the educational paths of the day care center of the undersigned association;
5. A beneficiary has been transferred to another micro-community project where she is continuing her social inclusion process.
The innovative element of the project is represented by the co-planning between the territorial social service of the Municipality of Milan and the private social sector. This element is specified in the Control Room made up of the various territorial actors who, having taken charge of the fragile subjects, periodically meet to report, investigate and place the beneficiaries at the various territorial structures. Inside the control room, through the analysis of the need, the joint taking charge of the person takes place, the objectives are specified and the personalized autonomy project is formulated which will be implemented later by the operators of the structure where the guest it is placed.
The monitoring and verification of the implementation status of the individual beneficiaries also takes place within the control room and, where necessary, the realignment of the autonomy project.
The control room also allows for the coordination of the various realities of the various territorial actors with a view to building good practices which, in the project completion phase, represent the prerequisites for the construction of a shared and above all repeatable model of intervention.
The methodology used by the project is based on four distinct phases that characterize the social intervention. Particularly:
ASSESTMENT: the collection of information and analyzes carried out by the operator with respect to the initial situation of a single person, starting from the facts that can be detected in the most objective way possible. Alongside these data, it also becomes necessary to probe people's point of view with respect to themselves and their situation. By putting these two types of information together, the multidisciplinary team in the control room develops the first design and operational hypotheses that must be shared with the beneficiary;
PROJECT DRAFTING: the project is prepared in a multidisciplinary team, actively involving the beneficiary. This phase is particularly important because in addition to sharing the objectives with the person, there is the agreement of the methodology and timing related to the achievement of the objectives. The person immediately becomes part of his own path of change as an active subject, with his own tools and with the awareness of the path he must take;
PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION: this phase translates into the development of tasks by the operator and the beneficiary aimed at developing the skills necessary for the path of autonomy.
In this phase the practitioner understands the strengths and weaknesses of the beneficiary to be developed. The beneficiary acquires awareness of his own abilities and in collaboration with the operators makes the necessary adjustments to achieve the final objective;
MONITORING AND FINAL VERIFICATION: during the implementation phase of the project, some moments of monitoring between operators and between operators and beneficiaries are envisaged.
The methodological aspects described above and the functioning of the Control Room represent good practices applicable in different contexts and with groups of beneficiaries with needs different from the target ones of this project. In particular, the element of co-planning of the intervention within the multidisciplinary team represents an innovation also with regard to the measurement of results in the field of social intervention. The description of the process that characterizes the control room, i.e. the networking of the various local actors, both public and private, involves the implementation of this model also in community development work which sees the activation of those processes as central identities both on a personal level and on a territorial level.
The implementation of a model based on need analysis, practice, result analysis, practice realignment, can certainly be replicated and transferred to any other territorial area and need range.
We support the empowerment of people in difficulty, strengthening communities and supporting aggregation to prevent social exclusion, we work in different contexts in the empowerment of people in difficulty, in their aggregation in action groups, in co-planning interventions with local welfare actors. We create economic-financial education courses, strengthen social networks and build groups in Piedmont. We carry out training and strengthening interventions for local welfare actors, in particular social services for the implementation of measures to combat poverty.
