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L’amico Charly Onlus Association

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L’amico Charly is a non–profit organization funded in 2001 in Milan after the tragic death of Charly Colombo, then aged 16.The mission of the organization is to prevent youth disease through various projects that provide support to those areas of youth life such as family, school and other environments.

The Charly Network

The Charly Network consists of:

·  The Association L’amico Charly Onlus.
· The Crisis Center – whose scientific Director, Professor Massimo Clerici and a specialized group of psychologists and psychotherapists work directly with those adolescents who have programmed and/or attempted suicide, their parents and school referents. Since 2006, the Crisis Center operates in partnership with the Fatebenefratelli Hospital of Milan, first example in the European Community of a cooperation between a public structure and a third sector reality. In 2011 it was renewed its partnership with the Regione Lombardia (Lombardy Region)and the Hospital - University Centre "Luigi Sacco" in favor of the three-year experimental project "Treatment of acute adolescent subjects with attempted suicide."

L’amico Charly and L’Officina dei Giovani (The Youth Factory)

Since April 2009, L’amico Charly Onlus has moved in a 12.000 squared meters area where the project of “L’Officina dei Giovani” has started.

The Officina is aimed at obtaining the following results:
- offer and adequate place to all users (adolescents, parents and teachers) unifying the Youth Center and the Service Center for all the adults that are involved in an important educational role. The Center will host different creative laboratories for adolescents to sustain and help their school activities. For parents and teachers, many activities will be organized: parental counselling, night conferences and group counselling.
- A Crisis Center, where youth who attempted suicide will be offered a psychological support;
- A school tutoring program in order to help youngsters choose the correct school path;
- A training program for teachers both on site) and on line (www.amicocharly.it);
- A center for documentation and research;
- Many sport activities (soccer, basketball, volleyball, rugby) given the high educational value of sport also in the different cultures integration process.
- Create a true Network system that operates with all the Third Sector realities in the territory in order to work in synergy in preventing youth disease.
- Work in the integration process of all the different cultural and religious realities present in the area, with a particular attention to the Islamic community, strongly represented in the area.

The final goals of the “Officina dei Giovani” are:
- to become a Pole for the Adolescents, tightly linked to all the similar third sector realities in other cities and also abroad.
- to become the First National Observatory where experts and sector specialists and researchers can outline the various dynamics of the youth so to prevent disease and analyse needs.
L’amico Charly, in cooperation with Public Institutions, implements an integrated focus on youth, families, schools and on increasing the awareness of every form of distress related to young people through special projects for adolescents.

L’amico Charly and Youngsters

In adolescence, peer relations have a significant role. Friends and small groups have an enormous importance in each adolescent social and sentimental growth: with peers youngsters face important phases of their growth such as the separation from parents and the identification with new ideals.

L’amico Charly staff support adolescents in their difficulties offering different services:
1. A meeting center where integrated labs are active in fields such as: music, arts, computer skills and a radioweb - directly managed by youngsters.
2. a sport event (The Trofeo L’amico Charly is now at his 12th Edition).
3. online consultants ( Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. E' necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo. for family and school related problems).

L’amico Charly and Parenthood

Through the PAG (Progetto Ascolto Genitori), L’amico Charly is aimed at answering to all parents’ needs to understand and face adolescents’ disease.
This project is aimed at supporting parental knowledge stimulating problem-sharing, identification of adolescents’ anxieties, helping adults face their children’s problems.
The PAG offers:
1. a one-to-one counselling service
2. debate groups under the supervision of the association’s experts
3. conferences with national major experts on adolescence related problems

L’amico Charly Onlus and the School

The school is definitely the most significant area of expertise, after the family, within which preadolescents and adolescents experience their growth potential acquisition understood as a social and personal identity adequate and satisfactory.
L’amico Charly has developed a theoretical model and methodological intervention for students and teachers inside and outside the school, in the belief that education constitutes an educational moment through which they are conveyed not only content related to the field of education but also the meanings that have to deal with relational and affective aspects, which are also central in the formation of the person.
The mode of collaboration takes place or at the request of the school or through the presentation of a project designed specifically with the school itself after a careful analysis of need.

L’amico Charly Onlus and The Crisis Center

Through the help of a specialised group of psychologists and experts, the association intervenes preventing and managing high risk situations and taking boys and girls that have attempted suicide into care.
Assistance and projects are aimed at giving youths the needed support to face the most complex part of life – adolescence – often accompanied by personal crises that can culminate in self harm.

Since its inception, L’amico Charly has placed primary importance on the creation of a Crisis Centre whose Scientific Director, Professor Massimo Clerici, Associate of Psychiatry at Università di Milano Bicocca and a specialized group of psychologists and psychotherapists work directly with those adolescents who have programmed and/or attempted suicide, their parents and school referents.

In May 2006 the Crisis Center, together with the Regione Lombardia (Lombardy Region) started an experimental pilot project with the Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Milan for an integrated service for dealing with attempted suicides.
In 2011 it was renewed its partnership with Lombardy Region and the Hospital - University Centre "Luigi Sacco" in favor of the three-year experimental project "Treatment of acute adolescent subjects with attempted suicide."

Through times, experience showed that the most efficient technique allowing to help the adolescent is the one that takes care of the environment where he lives in an holistic way, with particular attention especially to the family.

The method used consists in taking care of the adolescent and his/her parents in the fastest way. The Crisis Center Team starts a program of evaluation, meetings and constant support that uses psycho-diagnostic tests, feedback forms and individual talks with frequent moments of comparative analysis.

The duration of the treatment is not always predictable. Starting from a minimum amount of time of a month that can be taken up to 2 or 3 years depending on the evaluation of the suicidal risk made by the Team and by the very necessity felt by the patient.

In order to guarantee the continuity of the interventions, the project must be shared among the different protagonists of the treatment.