ACTIVITIES
Clinical activity
ACTIVITIES
Clinical activity
The Frantz Fanon Center is a counseling, psychotherapy, and psychosocial support service for people with a migrant background, refugees, and victims of trafficking and torture. Its establishment was made possible thanks to agreements signed in recent years by the Frantz Fanon Association with the mental health departments of the National Health Service.
During these years of activity, 2,700 users with a migrant background (individuals, families, couples) have been taken on by the Center’s team (currently composed of fifteen operators), and contact has been made with approximately 1,000 social and health workers.
Beyond these quantitative reports, it is the working group composed of people with different professional backgrounds (medicine-psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, cultural mediation, and education sciences) that constitutes the distinctive feature of the Center’s work.
Since January 15, 2013, following various events, the Center has ceased its collaboration with ASL TO 1 and, since March 2013, has continued its clinical and training activities at a new independent location at Via San Francesco d’Assisi, 3, Turin. Since 2022, the new location in Naples has also been active.
The Fanon Center (Turin) is open on Mondays from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and on Wednesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The contact details for the operators are as follows: Tel. and Fax. 011.4546552
Turin
MON 12.00 p.m. – 6.00 p.m.
wed 10.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Tel. e Fax. 011.4546552
Reception and psychotherapeutic treatment are provided by medical-psychiatric and psychological staff who, in addition to Italian, know at least two of the major languages (English, French), and in some cases Spanish or other languages (Farsi, Serbo-Croatian, etc.) in the presence of native-speaking mediators. The linguistic-cultural mediators identified have built up specific expertise in the area of psychological and psychiatric care, developed communication techniques sensitive to the specific needs of this user group, and learned to discreetly collect data and information, even simple personal details, which have often been modified or manipulated by the user in order to escape situations of threat and danger.
This is the first in-depth activity for operators and patients, aimed at better understanding the situation, in its many and complex layers, in order to develop a specific response and intervention.
The Association is continuously committed to supervising community and service operators (Mental Health Centers, Child Neuropsychiatry, Addiction Services, in Turin, Naples, and other cities) directly involved in the care and treatment of people with a migrant background. The main objective is to increase opportunities for learning, discussion, and critical reflection on the representations and intervention strategies usually adopted by operators when dealing with people with a migrant background.
A further and specific objective is to disseminate and share the theoretical and practical tools of critical ethnopsychiatry, medical anthropology, and a perspective on working with the health problems of the foreign population that is capable of critically reformulating assumptions, categories, and intervention strategies. We are aware of the urgent need to promote specific forms of cultural competence, while avoiding the culturalization of forms of suffering that are deeply rooted in social, economic, and political processes.
Our activities
Attività
Formazione
A livello nazionale e internazionale, ci occupiamo di formazione su temi di etnopsichiatria e antropologia medica, in contesti pubblici e del privato sociale. Organizziamo anche seminari aperti al pubblico, con la presenza di esperti di profilo internazionale.
Attività
Ricerca
Attività fondamentale, centrata su varie tematiche: migrazione, salute, violenza e tortura, epistemologia della clinica, costruzione culturale dell’infanzia, strategie terapeutiche dei guaritori tradizionali, stregoneria, giovani e immaginario della migrazione.
Attività
Attività internazionale
Le nostre attività hanno un respiro internazionale: concernono la ricerca, l’intervento clinico, la formazione, la valutazione e sono state svolte, nel corso degli anni, in Europa, Africa settentrionale e sub-sahariana, Medio Oriente, America latina, Balcani.
Attività
Advocacy
Nel corso degli anni, l’Associazione Frantz Fanon ha instaurato significative collaborazioni a diversi livelli territoriali. A livello locale, spiccano le pluriennali collaborazioni con le ASL cittadine e i relativi poli funzionali.