The Istituto Farlottine social cooperative was established “to pursue the general interests of the community, human development, and social inclusion, and aims to fulfill these purposes for members and third parties by managing educational, training, school, and care services and related or complementary activities, with particular attention to socially vulnerable individuals and families.” (Articles of Association, Article 2, paragraph 1)

Istituto Farlottine provides a varied educational environment, welcoming children of all ages, the youngest aged one, and accommodating several levels of education. Specifically, its preschool, primary school, and lower secondary school, all state-recognized private schools, together constitute Scuola San Domenico. This broad educational provision is distinguished by its special attention to children and families facing difficulties, following in the footsteps of Assunta Viscardi, an outstanding woman from Bologna who devoted her entire life to marginalized children.

Project Title
ALL FOR ONE: Initiatives for the well-being of everyone and each individual.

Project Beneficiaries
The project is intended for children experiencing serious personal and family difficulties that risk undermining their academic success and overall development.

Project Description
Scuola San Domenico–Istituto Farlottine educates children from birth to fourteen, with nursery, preschool, primary, and lower secondary provision. Despite the care and dedication given to each pupil, both academically and educationally, some children experience worrying levels of personal distress. Communication with families is carefully maintained and generally positive, but in more sensitive cases it is difficult to discuss a child’s distress with parents and direct them toward the appropriate local healthcare services.
This project aims to address the school-family-community educational system as a whole through three strands of activity:

1. Classroom workshops in expression and creativity: working with the whole class is the most natural way to observe individual pupils without singling anyone out. Group observation can reveal particular emotional and relational vulnerabilities without direct specialist interventions that might meet with resistance from children or families.
   The ten-session dance movement therapy workshop allows possible imbalances in psychological and emotional development to be identified through observation of group behavior and movement. Over the ten sessions, positive changes in expression and communication can be encouraged within the class. The meetings will be led by an experienced facilitator.
2. A program to develop educational decision-making skills. All lower secondary classes would benefit from preparation for choosing their next stage of education. Guidance tools also help identify school-related distress and put preventive activities in place.
3. Meetings with teachers and parents: meetings designed to improve school-family communication and establish an educational partnership in the young person’s best interests. The project includes two or three meetings lasting two hours each.

Project Objectives and Aims
The project aims to observe children’s behavior and identify serious distress in order to:

• Promote individual children’s well-being and a positive classroom atmosphere;
• Improve the most difficult situations;
• Enable communication among the school, families, and local services.

Project Timing, Delivery, and Location
The DANCE MOVEMENT THERAPY workshop will begin in March and conclude within the 2011–2012 school year. Communication with teachers and families will take place by June 2012. The entire project will be delivered on school premises.

Expected Results and Benefits
The project will provide an intervention to improve children’s well-being while enabling effective communication with families, encouraging all necessary steps for the relevant local social and healthcare services to take responsibility for supporting each situation.

Project Costs
Project costs cover:

• DANCE MOVEMENT THERAPY led by dance movement therapist Laura Neri. The intervention includes ten classroom sessions and the necessary meetings with teachers and families.
  The professional fee is €800, excluding contractual charges.
• Planning, coordination, and consultation by Dr. Francesca Giosuè, totaling €500 plus VAT.

Project Report
SAN DOMENICO LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL, BOLOGNA
Body Expression Workshop
Program summary by Laura Neri

Project Beneficiaries
The idea of offering this activity to the final-year lower secondary class arose from the teachers’ and school specialists’ need to use an approach different from conventional teaching with a group displaying intense conflict and aggressive behavior. These dynamics were seriously undermining both individual well-being and the ability to deliver the curriculum. In brief, the work addressed the complex dynamics of the group and its individual members through body language.
From the outset, the group of nine pupils—six boys and three girls—displayed the intense conflicts that had been described to me. Within these dynamics, adults were excluded: mocked, teased, and given little consideration.
Two participants receive support from local services and have extremely severe relational and behavioral difficulties. Three others display inappropriate ways of relating, including bullying, making teachers’ work very difficult.
The group therefore includes five pupils experiencing difficulties who often draw the other four into negative behavior.
Their interactions are constantly marked by verbal and physical provocation: pushing, teasing, kicking, punching, slapping, tripping, and mocking one another. Despite this, they continually seek each other out, showing a dependent way of coming together. This is particularly evident in how they occupy the room, all moving in the same direction; the image that comes to my mind is a herd. I observed many expressions of anger in both speech and movement. Sometimes this emerged in outbursts that were difficult to contain, both internally and externally; at other times it turned inward, manifesting as passivity.

Project Description
A body expression workshop was offered using dance movement therapy methods and techniques associated with Art Therapy Italiana*.
The workshop provided a protected, nonjudgmental space: a setting able to hold forms of expression, feelings, and emotions, which we sought to transform creatively wherever possible.
Participants were invited to explore some basic elements of movement, experimenting with “effort” qualities in Laban Movement Analysis, to increase awareness and enable aggressive aspects to become constructive elements. I guided the group toward creating a simple choreography based on their everyday gestures, taking inspiration from the HAKA, a traditional dance of the Māori people of New Zealand. The haka is mistakenly described simply as a war dance, associated with the All Blacks rugby team’s battle cry. In fact, it is a disciplined yet stirring and emotional expression through which performers convey positive or negative states of mind during rituals, festivities, and celebrations.

Project Objectives and Aims

• Improve the ability to participate in a group;
• Discover movement’s expressive and communicative possibilities;
• Discover appropriate ways to relate to others and the environment through movement;
• Strengthen self-confidence;
• Use energy creatively and release and channel emotions;
• Explore the possibilities of movement;
• Expand body awareness;
• Stimulate creativity and imagination.

Project Timing, Delivery, and Location
The intervention consisted of ten weekly sessions during physical education classes, in collaboration with teacher Marco Simoni. Highly useful discussions also took place with Principal Mirella Lorenzini and teacher Elena Scaruffi throughout the program.
Activities were held at San Domenico Lower Secondary School in Bologna.

Expected Results and Benefits
Through patient, engaging, and particularly sensitive work, the pupils gradually developed confidence in me and in the activities. They succeeded in creating a simple choreography reflecting deeper aspects of their experience. The final result, also visible in a short video documenting parts of the workshop, was highly rewarding for them and helped them become at least partly aware of certain aspects of themselves. Time devoted to speaking and brief written reflections was especially valuable. I sought to recognize each person’s positive qualities, reinforcing even their smallest expressions and creations, while also helping them face their more negative aspects without judgment, focusing instead on the process.
Working alongside a male teacher was particularly effective. It gave the joint facilitation the symbolic form of two parental figures pursuing the same objectives with different styles and approaches, offering more balanced and comprehensive support.
Despite the group’s apparent similarity, I observed considerable differences within it. Those experiencing the greatest difficulties tended to draw in their more willing classmates, almost always pulling them into provocation and subsequent conflict.
Broadly speaking, at least four participants showed willingness and a good ability to explore and experiment. They trusted me and engaged constructively with the activities.
Three others showed marked difficulty relating to adults in this setting. Particularly in the early sessions, they tried to devalue the work and destroy the positive things taking shape. My impression was of confused young people who struggled to follow rules and connect with their emotions. They appeared angry and distrustful.
The remaining two participants caused me particular concern, revealing what appeared to be deeper difficulties in this setting.
One, a girl, behaved in an extremely childlike manner and sought special attention from me, while acting in self-centered and demanding ways. Her movement style was characterized by bound tension flow and a small kinesphere in Laban Movement Analysis terms. She alternated between limited movement, appearing passive and withdrawn, and sudden motor outbursts in which she shouted forcefully and activated her whole body. Soon afterward, she would return to standing with her hands in her pockets, head lowered, and back curved. These patterns could indicate considerable difficulty recognizing emotions and expressing them appropriately for herself and others. She seemed unable to tolerate silence, speaking and complaining continually, suggesting a possibly persistent state of anxiety. During verbal reflections, she expressed anger but also made perceptive observations rich in emotion.
The other, a boy, showed a degree of emotional confusion through both his movements and his behavior toward peers and adults, despite excellent motor and verbal abilities. This could influence and destabilize the whole group. Driven by a strong desire or need to be noticed, he immediately proposed spectacular, acrobatic choreography, unlike the rest of the group, whose initial embarrassment and understandable fear of injury were more typical. Examples included leaps, one-handed cartwheels, and handstands. Such movements require considerable control, and at many moments I feared he might hurt himself: his control was minimal, sometimes revealing an impulse to launch himself into space in response to an inner need without full awareness of the risk.
What struck me most was how differently he related to me from one session to the next, with disconcerting changes in emotional state. Some meetings suggested that a trusting relationship was developing; at others, he suddenly became belittling and dismissive, treating me with contempt and intense provocation. On those days, establishing a relationship with him seemed impossible. He appeared overwhelmed by anger and, above all, by relentless confusion that he seemed unable to manage adequately. In our sensitive work together, recognizing his motor abilities provided a way to reach him, enabling him to remain with his classmates and build something positive rather than destroy it.
Based on observations during this short program, I believe these two young people would benefit greatly from a dance movement therapy program, allowing them to explore, in a healthy and protected setting, the distress so clearly expressed through their bodies.

Objectives Achieved
Participants gradually developed confidence in me, the activities, and their own possibilities and abilities. We successfully channeled aggressive forms of expression creatively into a simple choreography to which everyone contributed in different ways. The documentary video is entitled “Work in Progress.” Each participant explored movement in connection with emotional states, discovering new possibilities for communication and expression.

This report is necessarily a very brief summary of the program. I remain available should further discussion of any aspect be helpful.

* Art Therapy Italiana, based in Bologna, was founded in 1982 to promote art therapy and dance movement therapy in Italy. It brings together professionals who use artistic or movement-based expression as techniques of analytic psychotherapy. It also offers a four-year training program in art therapy and dance movement therapy, leading to a diploma.
Dance movement therapy originated in the United States in the 1940s and is now recognized as an essential tool in therapeutic services across clinical, educational, and social rehabilitation settings. Dance movement therapists use Laban Movement Analysis both diagnostically and as an intervention method to analyze, understand, and process emotional experiences expressed in the body and movement. They draw on their own bodily experience to establish direct contact with participants and encourage them to find expressive approaches and symbolic forms representing their experiences. Creativity is fundamental to the therapeutic process. The therapist’s role is to promote, support, and strengthen the creative capacities necessary for human life.
Dance movement therapy draws particularly on psychoanalytic theories examining the emotional processes between children and their environments during development, especially British and American object relations approaches.