Paper
“Essere al mondo, mettere al mondo: una rete cha accoglie”: a network project to support families that are experiencing the parental status
- issue: Issue 1 / 2009
- authors: Maria Ferrante, Cristina Marchesini, Barbara Fava
- keywords: personalized actions, neo-parental status, network, services, preventive, integration, Italy
- views: 3191
- downloaded: 0
- download pdf (68 Kb)
abstract
Background. The Vignola District includes 9 towns, 83852 inhabitants as a whole. In 2006, newborn babies were 895 and the women followed during their pregnancy by the Family Advisory Centre were 483 (54%), 232 of which were foreigners. Operators of different Services noticed several matters:
- a large number of women with social and sanitary problems;
- the complexity of the parental role according to the changeovers of family typologies;
- a large number of foreign families;
- a wide sense of a hidden and unpredictable uneasiness, as well as fragmentary and incomplete answers to the main problems;
- a lack of communication between professionals of different services;
- the need to use a new personalized approach, creating a system of services that could work together and connecting each other as a sort of "network".
The Project is addressed to: new families who want to experience parenthood, pregnant women, parents, single fathers or mothers, or women with maternity blues.
The aim is to start the joint work between different Services: social, sanitary, educational and voluntary services, in order to support and accompany families in their parental role and to diagnostic and deal hastily with the risk of maternity blues.
Actions
- To create a teamwork composed by referents of every organization who takes part to the Project. The purposes of this teamwork are: planning, monitoring and taking care of relationships between operators of different services;
- First Level Training addressed to operators who met families to prepare them and provide them with adequate information;
- Second Level Training addressed to sanitary and social operators who had to support babies and families welfare;
- Analysis of existing actions in order to connect them: pre-natal examinations; post-natal interviews; pre-natal training; training for parents and children; meeting points for families provided by the Centre of Family; psycholgical support by Psychological Services; cares for pregnant women with social problems by Social Services; breast feeding support by Voluntary Organization "La Via Lattea"; informative actions and attention to the work made by "Foreign Bureau" by Local Organizations (Unione Terre di Castelli and Comunità Montana); collaboration between First Childhood Services, Paediatricians and Medical Officers from the Medical District; activities by Informadonna Office of the committee for the equal opportunity;
- Focus Group: meetings with families and operators to verify the correspondence between needs and answers and to create new projects;
- Informative Campaign: documentation for practitioners, informative folders addressed to women in childbirth, dissemination of material for citizens;
- Establishment of the Advice Centre as a final synthesis of our project, in order to meet families' demands and to support parents in need;
- Our purpose was to use a welcoming language through an approach focused on the individual, in other words on each family member, considering the Net as a complex, flexible and adaptive system in connection to parents'specific needs of, and finally, to create relational services.
Results. In order to evaluate the results we selected some indicators which could underline, on one hand that Services Involved in the project could integrate themselves and, on the other one, that could point out the people needs. The following indicators evaluated the results of one year activity:
- 200 trained professionals;
- 18 multidisciplinary meetings;
- Focus Group: 14 operators and 14 families.
Moreover, we selected some indicators which could evaluate our ability to attend families:
- Actvities of Advice Centre:
- 57 families attended;
- 143 meetings;
- 7 cases teken care by by other Services that are part of the Net-System.
The work made by Focus Groups underlines the operators' need of collaborative and integrated work in order to face more and more complex tasks successfully, thus avoiding fragmentary answers and families' need of advice, professional cares, assistance, and empowerment as an efficient working tool.
The Advice Centre experience put into evidence several problems concerning relationships (within the couple and within the whole family unit), psychological uneasiness after childbirth (recognised both in mothers and fathers), isolated families with hardly any social relations, difficulties and tiredness in managing the family, and conflict between the roles of mother and worker.
Awaiting that, we made the effectiveness indicators (second year of activity) clear, the activities of Advice Centre were evaluated by operators using some patterns which are consider the following elements: non-verbal messages, (for instance, showing more smiling and relaxed face); remarking by people which underline that they feel better, restarting capability of meeting people again and taking part to social events; satisfaction and improvement in family life, decreasing of anxious rate; continuing in suckling baby, implementing suggested strategy and practicing new competences in child behavioural reading.
Recommendations. To the professionals: to refine the ability to notice social disease and to face problems, and develop professional integration.
To the research: to develop new methods to analyse the incoming needs and contribute to the organization of an effective net system between services.
To the politicians: to provide suitable answers to these matters, support the professional integration as an essential element in the qualification of the Network.
Key references
Comitato Nazionale di Bioetica - Aiuto alle donne in gravidanza e depressione post-partum (6-122005).
Piano Sociale e sanitario RER 2007-2009.
Piani di zona 2005-2007, Programma attuativo 2006, Zona sociale di Vignola.
Contacts: Maria Ferrante, U.O. Salute Donna - AUSL Modena, Distretto di Vignola, Via Anzio 1, 41100 Modena, E-mail: m.ferrante@ausl.mo.it, Phone 3470409893.