Comitato Maria Letizia Verga. Clinica Pediatrica Universitá di Milano – Polo di Monza
Nuovo Ospedale San Gerardo – Monza - Italy
In 1997 the Comitato Maria Letizia Verga (Monza, Italy) started a new project aimed at
establishing parents self help groups. This project is part of the psychosocial program
being developed in our department that involves professionals and parents in a therapeutic
alliance to offer the best quality of life to children suffering from leukaemia and to
their families. The need for such an initiative was identified by the psychosocial team in
1996 on the occasion of the annual meeting of the parents belonging to the Comitato. The
analysis of the attitude of parents towards communication and their capacity to cope
highly stressful situations suggested the need to design a comprehensive approach
including an evaluation process and specific training.
Of the thirteen parents who choose to attend the first training course, seven were mothers and six were fathers, including two couples. Two parents had lost their child respectively 16 and 10 years earlier, ten parents had cured children (6 after BMT), and one parent had a child in therapy. The group was socially and culturally heterogeneous but bonded by a strong motivation and a common objective.
The course was led by a communication expert and a psychologist and took place in a small hotel during four weekends over a period of three months. Through lectures, workshops and role playing, parents were introduced to the main issues of communication, and they were taught to recognise their own inner resources in various ways such as experiencing interaction between members, mutual influence and continuous communication exchange.
The main difficulties identified were:
· feelings of inadequacy
· fear to make mistakes
· difficulties in evaluating one’s
own emotional reactions
· difficulties in acquiring a working
method and assuming responsibilities.
Special attention was given to the qualities necessary to keep a
group alive such as:
· the ability to welcome
· the ability to listen with a clear and
open mind without passing judgement
· the ability to trust and to be trusted
· the ability to risk
· the ability to deal with those who feel
excluded or exclude themselves
· the ability to solve problems mediating
conflicts.
At the end of the course, an action plan was developed taking into account suggestions made during interviews with parents and professionals and the need to better integrate the new activities into the existing programs.
Thanks to a flexible approach the group is now active in the
department in three different ways:
· parents to parents contacts twice a
week in the outpatient clinic and on the ward
· a self-help group, meeting once a week
in the evening in the outpatient clinic and on the ward.
· an advisory service based in the
Comitato’s office and available every Saturday morning.
The project is ongoing and the group meetings take place regularly once a month. Preliminary information suggests that both parents and professionals appreciate the initiative.