Founder Carla Piccoli Dal Maso, alongside physical therapist Cristina Baso and psychologist Laura Pettenò at the Center, tell the story and mission of Cooperativa Intervento.
This initiative started as volunteer work in the 1970s and eventually came to serve two hundred children. The underlying motivation is fundamentally human: to help these children, to watch them improve, to see their families come back to life. Each person brings their own faith or political convictions, but these have never been topics of discussion, and so far no one has ever left.
"For me," Carla Piccoli says, "as a mother and grandmother, a child is always a child, regardless of his condition. I believe he has every right to life, to grow into all that life has given him. I refuse to give up. We believe deeply in the method we use—it has given us so many results, often more than we expected. It matters too much to the children to manage it carelessly. So we fight for it with everything we have."
Unfortunately, they note, we carry the burden of being associated with the Doman method—the one about ten hours of work a day. The Delacato method, by contrast, is entirely workable in terms of approach and schedule.
When the cooperative began, it served eight children. Its first work was bringing that part of the method dealing with learning difficulties into the schools.
Our greatest challenge comes from public agencies failing to understand what we do. Knowing as we do the real struggles families face when disability touches their lives, none of us can ask for what would logically be fair compensation. And yet—if we had a contract like any standard medical-psychological-pedagogical center, we could work with ease and serve this many children! But difficulties haven't dampened our enthusiasm. If anything, we're eager to expand, to learn more, to understand more deeply.
What are our projects and hopes?
We're looking for a larger space so families here can do the work with their children alongside our volunteers, as we once did. We want to open other centers like this one, but always under our direct supervision. The method is too valuable, too important to try to pass on in a few days of training what we've learned over years of work and study—and what we're still learning.
"I've been translating Delacato's books for ten years," Carla Piccoli explains, "and I serve as his interpreter when he comes to Italy, in exchange for training our staff."
What keeps us going, what gives us courage despite everything, the founders conclude, are the results: watching the child change, seeing the family recover hope.
What fills us with sorrow and rage is watching children with minor difficulties get crushed or pushed toward dark futures by misunderstanding and needless obstacles from the world around them.
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Cooperativa Intervento Founded in 1978 on the basis of volunteer work that began in 1970, it serves people with brain injuries, genetic damage, and mental delays from social causes (including severe spastic conditions and autism). It currently follows approximately 400 children from across Italy, some from abroad as well. This Center for Consultation, Therapy, and Rehabilitation is the only one outside the United States to apply independently the method of Prof. Carl H. Delacato, who visits three times a year. In other centers—in Barcelona, Bonn, Kobe, and Israel—Delacato works directly. The Delacato method originated from the Doman-Delacato method but has since become entirely distinct. How the center works Parents call for an appointment and come with their child. During the initial meeting, which lasts about two hours, the child is assessed; then the parents are interviewed; then the team—made up of a physician, psychologist, and physical therapist—discusses what work the parents should do with their child at home. If necessary, other specialist consultants step in (neurologist, child psychiatrist, optometrist, and so on)—some who visit the center, others to whom the child is referred. The work is manageable for parents: it can take from half an hour to two hours a day in the most serious cases. When possible, parents are connected with volunteer groups or cooperatives to help them carry out the work. Follow-up visits come every two to four months, when progress is evaluated and any changes to the work program are determined. The cooperative also offers free phone consultation to schools, especially for special education teachers. Finally, training courses are held for staff, at the request of School Districts and Local Health Authorities. Cooperativa Intervento receives no public funding or contracts, so it charges for its services—but far less than it would cost if profit were the goal. Eight staff members work there, not as employees but as paid contractors (earning less than their level of specialization truly warrants). The other members, including president and founder Carla Piccoli Dal Maso, donate their labor under the organization's bylaws. For more information about Cooperativa Intervento today, read here by Sergio Sciascia, 1986