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| Firenze Duomo at sunset |
Still a bit wary about flying - from Gatwick this time, the day after a train strike - but the train round the Surrey Hills was fine. They only needed a passport at check-in, so my anxieties about not having the necessary post-covid papers was soon dispelled. But I did get given an old-fashioned boarding card - perhaps there was so much hassle and bureaucracy during the pandemic that they have now stripped it all down to the bare minimum.
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| WMHD ribbon |
Anyway, easy flight to Florence for two days there - a World Mental Health Day conference called 'Mental Health Marathon' on the Monday, followed by the final Italian-organised conference and workshop of INDTC (International Network of Democratic TCs) on Tuesday.
INDTC was formed about ten years ago based by the London-based charity Community Housing and Therapy (
www.cht.org.uk). After widespread networking across Europe and India, the British organisation held their final conference at the Cassel Hospital in 2019 and handed the reins over to a collective of our Italian colleagues. From then until now they have been in charge - of direction, strategy, logo, website (
www.indtc.org), and (a small sum of) money.
In the midst of their time came covid - and they organised numerous events, perhaps made easier (though certainly less sociable) by the widespread and easy use of video conferencing we have all experienced. Indeed the direction and intentions of INDTC were set by a slightly chaotic and crazy day in May 2021 called the 'Zoom of Babel'. It took place in the middle of the afternoon (GMT) so people could join from the West Coast of North America (early in the morning), Europe (easy), India (evening) and Japan (very late). Although people from Australia and NZ were invited, I don't think any of them managed to come - but it would have been the very middle of the night. So, with some rather playful IT voting tricks, the long list of things that people were interested in was whittled down to three, which were held as the main areas of current interest for INDTC. Several other meetings and events followed, some Italian for their local groups, and some international.
The first time we all got together for a real face-to-face reunion was yesterday - when the Italians' tenure ended. Interestingly, the Google Translate app has come on leaps and bounds since I last used it. If you set it to translate audio and transcribe it is amazing to watch - typing out in English what it hears in Italian. It doesn't catch everything, especially when there is background noise or more than one person talking (not uncommon in Italy!), and sometimes it comes out with weird and convoluted results - but at least you can get a sense of what is being talked about. And if you are close to the speaker and they use simple language, it gets it absolutely perfect! Never as good as dear Laura our interpreter, of course, but good when there is nobody to help us English linguistic illiterates.
The morning topics for the conference came from the Babel event and subsequent discussions:
- Greencare
- Democratic working in non-democratic places
- Conflict and dialogue
Interesting discussions were had by all - I particularly enjoyed being in the greencare group, and hearing about how seriously greencare is being taken in various places in Italy, and that a national research study is soon to be commissioned. Also the Greencare 'conceptual framework', written by the EU COST Action 866 about twelve years ago (
https://www.cost.eu/actions/866/) has been translated into Italian and is being distributed as a book (the English version sadly being out of print for several years now).
We heard from Terra Nostra (the Caltagirone Care Farm - called Social Farm in Italy) where we have held several LLEs in the past - and the wide range of activities they are now up to. If only different funders and commissioners could get together, I thought, what a good solution it could be for some of the intractible problems in health, mental health, social care, education, criminal justice, housing and employment. But that seems an unrealistic dream at the moment - it is clearly a struggle to even survive; just like back home I suppose.
The afternoon started with a manifesto workshop - to define the forthcoming areas of interest for INDTC; each of the morning groups took it in turns to present and debate three intentions - making a total of nine areas to focus on. This is the afternoon's draft list (translated by Google again) but it will be refined and edited by INDTC's international steering group before the final version is decided.
Green Care
- communities
and therapeutic services should have as a requirement to have the convention
that of implementing green care practices
- training,
evaluation and continuous and residential research of operators on green care
- green
care as a socio-rehabilitative living environment and environmental care
Democracy in non-democratic environments
- get involved in a group and democratic way in a dialogic paradigm accepting the
challenge of research
- promote
formal structures and intra-institutional organizational practices that are
dialogic, multidisciplinary and non-hierarchical
- cultivate an
inter-institutional network of connections and collaborations
Dialogue and conflict
- recognition
of differences and conflicts as constitutive parts of individuals, groups and
organizations and institutions
- promote dialogic and democratic approaches based
on complexity and mediation to make transformative conflicts
- accept and
understand the complexity of therapeutic work in institutions through community democratic principles
The final item for the day was for the Italian collective (Chaired by Angelita Volpe) to say 'goodbye', and the Portuguese team (chaired by
João Pereira) to say 'hello, here we are'. They did this with a beautiful video of the Portuguese landscape, and a hint of what is to come. See
https://www.fundacaords.org/en/videos/casa-de-alba-therapeutic-community-in-mental-health/. Intriguingly, it included human rights and mental health - something I have always claimed that TCs do rather well...
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| Italians hand over to the Portuguese - Angelita and Joao in the centre
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Finally, a note about Parmigiano Reggiano Stravecchio. One of my rituals is always to take a big block of Parmesan cheese home, but I am starting to wonder if it is worth it. As you may know, the length of its ageing makes a great deal of difference to the way parmesan tastes, particularly the quality of umami, and what it costs. I went to a vast supermarket on the way to the airport and bought 24 month parmesan for €25/kg. Then at the airport, I looked at the prices and it was €38.50/kg for 15 months and €49.99/kg for 30 months - so at least I did right to not wait until the airport. But looking at the parmesan prices back home - Sainsburys' ''Taste the Difference' 30 month, or organic 18 month, is £21/kg. 'Ordinary' parmesan, matured for 22 months, is £17.50/kg. At the local Costco, the 24 month matured parmesan is £15.69/kg. With the pound and euro being so close, it is looking better off waiting to get it at home, which feels a bit sad. But so does Brexit and our UK financial mess.
