Roberta, what is one your experience within MetaCometa?
I am an educator and for about two years I have been working within the MetaCometa Association in one of the foster homes aimed at hosting fragile single-parent households sent by the social services of the territory. What I have certainly learned from my experience so far is undoubtedly the complexity underlying acting within an educational facility and, above all, the flexibility required of each professional figure to deal with the plurality of situations that arise.
In particular, talking about education and referring to any context related to it, be it formal or informal, cannot but imply the consideration of an indispensable condition to the educational experience: planning.
This represents one among the fundamental and at the same time complex declinations within educational action, in which the “project,” as a written document presents itself only as a small piece of a much larger puzzle.
Planning in fact indicates that disposition to activate a constant work of building contexts and situations by continuously mediating between what is the educational act and the world of people, rich in experiences, desires and above all needs. These, in particular, are like little “spies” that tell us a bit of the story of the large or small person we are dealing with and, for that very reason, it is essential to be able to recognize the needs of individuals and then identify the most appropriate responses that can satisfy them. Of course, all this takes time, trial and error and, unfortunately, sometimes mistakes.
Tell us about the beneficiaries you meet in your service?
In my work as an educator, I often come across children, adolescents and parents who carry on their shoulders, sometimes unknowingly, a baggage of needs that intermittently flash by waiting to be met.
This is where the problematic nature of planning manifests itself: being able to identify a right path made up of many goals that, like stages, mark a path that can meet those needs and help the person become increasingly autonomous in his or her process of personal and social fulfillment.
In your opinion, is the role of an educator a lonely one?
The educator is not always self-sufficient in this arduous task but must be supported by a group of professionals who, like him, revolve around the child or mother who is in a difficult situation. What makes the difference, then, is the possibility of observing those same individuals on multiple dimensions and with different perspectives that then go on to complement each other and provide the best view of the other in front of us.
In this sense within the educational work, networking from the initial stages of observation of individual needs, identification of what are the goals, monitoring of the progress made to the final evaluation is essential.
Within the work that I find myself doing on a daily basis, alongside the support of the referral team, it is therefore essential to engage with local social services, schools, health institutions and all those agencies that are part of the social fabric of everyday life. By interconnecting all the various spheres of intervention, it is thus possible to develop a life project for the person with special educational needs. In this sense, a frequently used tool in educational settings is the IEP (individualized educational plan).
What does the educational plan allow you to accomplish?
Specifically within my work in a second home for women and children, the IEP becomes a fundamental document to guide planning aimed at the development primarily of the children and consequently of the nuclei themselves.
Starting from an analysis of the history and characteristics of the individual subjects these are paid attention with respect to the needs and behaviors related to them, organizing them into dimensions of the quality of life such as self-perception, family history, relationships with peers and adult figures, school, autonomy and so on… from here are then identified the goals to be achieved in a certain time frame to support the individual’s growth process, favoring a perspective of development and autonomy. Alongside this, it is also important to pay attention to the care of the spaces, environments and in particular also the timing in which the educational planning is inserted as these also assume centrality and a profound influence on the success of the activities that are designed and structured in the context of reference. Enhancing the functionality and value of planning is also the quality of the relationship that is created between educator and educand. It involves promoting a constant work of trust woven within an asymmetrical relationship. However, it is good to keep the goal of the relationship clear and to escape those situations in which personal professional involvement can influence and damage the educational path designed and implemented. Educational work from a relational point of view moves in the perspective of a proximity manifested with the right distance from the other in order to always maintain an objective and educationally centered gaze.
What distinguishes the work in MetaCometa?
Also specifically for the area of work in which I enter daily to validate design thinking in time and space is above all the maintenance of a distinctive charism that distinguishes the educational work of the MetaCometa Association. It is indeed about promoting in design thinking the sense of familiarity and home. This becomes substantial in the species in situations where due to various fragilities and criticalities inherent in the family units of origin, minors come to lose the sense of union, community and therefore the values of collaboration and sharing that can find maximum expression within the family context. Indeed, the family is the first social space experienced by the child and the place par excellence where different values and projects, marital, parental and individual, are concatenated. A safe space in which they can open up to personal growth, starting from the discovery of the other to the discovery of themselves and what their life project is and will be.
