The Safe Houses of Ginestra Group consist of two first-floor apartments located in a historic building in the centre of Milan, and feature all of the amenities of a normal home.
These Safe Houses form part of a wider therapeutic-rehabilitation project aimed at the social reintegration of psychiatric patients. For many patients a successful transition from high assistance therapeutic-rehabilitative contexts to independent living situations is favoured by a period spent in an "assisted" housing solution that allows and promotes a high degree of autonomy and greater individual responsibility.
In this sense, sharing an apartment in the city plays an important role.
Through the experience of living in these unique spaces, patients can experience and consolidate skills that they have learned or retrieved through treatment.
Each treatment plan is followed by a multidisciplinary team, including psychiatrists, psychologists, occupational and psychiatric rehabilitation therapists.
The objectives that a sojourn in one of these apartments intend to achieve include:
- The promotion of a better quality of life through a family-type housing situation;
- The consolidation and development of autonomy aimed at stimulating the recovery process of individual skills;
- Improved self-control on emotional and behavioural levels;
- Improved social skills through interaction with other guests and support staff;
- The exploration and exposure to re-socialising activities (work, volunteering, study, sport, leisure, etc.);
The presence of psychiatric rehabilitation therapists, professional educators and psychologists at various times in every day – and especially during shared activities such as meals and organizational meetings and activities necessary to the management of the house (shopping, cleaning etc.) – ensures that the patients' self-care activities and personal spaces are constantly monitored, while also guiding and facilitating the relationship between guests and the organization of outdoor activities in line with each guest's individual treatment plan and, more generally of processes that will favour the emancipation and autonomy.
The therapeutic-rehabilitative program integrates two areas of intervention, the rehabilitation area and the clinical area. The rehab area involves all aspects of everyday life in the apartments and external exploration activities.
Individual assistance during basic activities, as well as support in daily and outdoor activities, participation in the planning of community activities, and individual and group rehabilitation are offered.
In clinical terms, patients receive periodic psychiatric visits, psychological support interviews, psychotherapy, and psychoeducational groups.
If the patient consents, talks are scheduled on a regular basis with family members, as well as meetings between the guest's family and the team.