The Department of Mental Health and Addiction Diseases (DSMPD) is an Operational Structure of the ASL responsible for ensuring the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of the population at risk or with mental illnesses and/or addictions.
The DSMPD
- It organizes services and interventions aimed at protecting mental health and combating all forms of addiction, both in the free life contexts of each individual, and in environments with deprivation of personal freedom (prisons, security residences).
- It works to promote the inclusion of each individual in their own living environment, combating stigma and discrimination and promoting the processes of autonomy and active participation of each citizen.
- It organizes services and interventions with a view to networking, in synergy with other institutions in the area, with the private social sector, with accredited private health services, with volunteering and associations and with the local community.
- It ensures, directly or with the participation of accredited bodies, outpatient, street and proximity, home, residential and semi-residential, hospital services and interventions.
DSMPD arises from a vision of the individual as an outcome of the processes of subjective reworking of the relationships between the self, the contexts (or objects of addiction) and the environment (cultures). Therefore, the treatment of mental disorders and addiction pathologies is focused on the care of relationships.
The History
The DSMPD was born from the integration of two previous Departments, each with its own clinical, cultural and organisational history.
The former Department of Mental Health had been structured on the basis of the great reform of Italian psychiatry, with the closure of Psychiatric Hospitals (OP) and the start of community psychiatry. Transformations that have also had important repercussions in the provincial territory, with the closure of the Ceccano PO and the simultaneous reorganization of territorial, residential and hospital services.
The former Department of Addiction Discomfort Deviance (D3D), founded in 1997 as a regional pilot department, began in the light of a radical rethinking of the meaning of addiction diseases and the potential of community strategies and interventions. Addiction pathology is therefore framed as a pathology of the relationship between the individual, the substance and the environment, in which the integration processes (intrapsychic and object-environmental) are dysfunctional. Hence the great commitment of the former D3D in territorial policies of inclusion, prevention, harm reduction and, above all, work for objectives and projects. D3D has therefore proposed and implemented multiple projects at regional, national and European level.
Since 2013, there has been a strong collaboration between the Department of Discomfort, Deviance, Dependencies (D3D) and the DSM, both driven by the need to understand and manage border and overlap issues together.
In 2015, the ASL Frosinone implemented the organizational integration between the two previous departments, for the development of a more profitable mutual cultural enrichment, an optimization of resources and an appropriate management of the multiple cases of co-occuring disorders. The integration between these two historic departments also had the purpose of influencing territorial health and socio-health policies with a unitary and homogeneous vision in the field of the psycho-physical-social well-being of the individual in his living environment (MDG).
The Organization
The Department of Mental Health and Addictive Diseases is a Department with technical-management, organisational and accounting autonomy and is organised into cost and responsibility centres hierarchically dependent on the Department Director.
The DSMPD uses different organizational paradigms:
- FOR PROJECTS: responds to specific problems, looking for innovative solutions. Identifies objectives, action plans and verifies the achievement of results (regional planning in the field of addiction diseases, including gambling disorder, job inclusion, national and European projects);
- A MATRIX: matrix logic, according to which some internal coordination processes are strongly developed in favour of the growth of professional skills, the integration of work processes, the evaluation of results (Clinical Appropriateness and Outcome Evaluation Program, Training Program, Definition Program of Diagnostic Therapeutic Care Pathways);
- HIERARCHICAL: this organization responds to the need to identify stable production lines, with clear hierarchical responsibility. Model in line with the entire company organization, through which the basic services are provided to the resident population (9 Complex Operating Units and 2 Simple Departmental Units identified by target; 10 Simple Operating Units pertaining to the individual UOCs identified by territories). Human Resources are assigned to the individual Units exclusively or per hourly quota.
The Support Offer
In the field of Mental Health, patients with discomfort and mental illness are treated, as well as their families, in accordance with the provisions of national regulations and the Mental Health Objective Projects. Hospital treatment is ensured in acute situations, in which the need for hospitalization is found and therapeutic-rehabilitation projects are initiated on an outpatient, semi-residential, residential and home basis aimed at subjects, free or with deprivation of personal freedom, who have mental disorders or pathologies. In this context, the DSMPD:
- guarantees psychiatric and/or psychological advice and the care of patients with discomfort and mental illnesses, including in prison;
- works in an integrated manner with the social and health structures, for the elaboration of specific projects, in reference to the taking charge and evaluation of patients in multiproblematic situations;
- promotes development actions and support for integration policies between the Health Authority and Local Authorities, for the implementation of services with high social and health integration aimed at specific targets of vulnerable populations with mental and social discomfort;
- promotes residential integration by assessing the specific subjective, family and social problems in place;
- controls the admissions of users, of territorial competence, through the Multidimensional Evaluation Unit;
- promotes re-entry into society through educational activities, social learning and development of cognitive skills, including for patients with Safety Measures;
- implements voluntary or compulsory health treatment, where necessary;
- promotes support for home life, help with the management of community housing, the management of socializing activities and job placement.
Within the framework of Addiction Diseases, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation interventions are ensured for the population that pours in specific conditions of individual, social and/or neurobiological vulnerability and fragility, with particular reference to subjects at risk of addiction, including adolescents, to subjects with addiction pathology from or without substance, both in the territorial context, and specifically of subjects involved in the prison circuit.
In accordance with the provisions of national and regional legislation in the field of addiction diseases, the DSMPD:
- guarantees selective and targeted territorial prevention activities in specific life contexts (educational institutions, recreational facilities, places of fun and spontaneous aggregation);
- guarantees the taking charge, with therapeutic and rehabilitative diagnostic treatments, of subjects with substance use disorder or with addictive behaviours (addictions without substance). The diagnosis and treatment are multidisciplinary, psychological, medical-pharmacological, social, nursing and rehabilitation;
- guarantees support and advice to the families of dependent patients and to the families of subjects with addictive pathology who have no motivation for treatment;
- guarantees harm reduction interventions and prevention of related pathologies both to those already in charge and to the population with substance use disorder not motivated to cure;
- guarantees the inclusion and monitoring in residential or semi-residential treatments, with pedagogical-rehabilitative, therapeutic-rehabilitative and specialist value;
- ensures the coordination of the different social actors and the different Institutions that act on the same targets and promotes the development of inter-institutional networks and integration between public and private social bodies;
- develops strategies and actions for social and health integration, also in the context of the programming of the Area Plans, formulating in concert with the Social Private structures, with the associations of volunteers and family members collaboration activities for specific areas of need (social reintegration, training activities etc.).
The DSMPD has also developed a specific competence for intervention in contexts of deprivation of personal liberty, such as Prison Institutions (CR Palino, CC Frosinone, CC Cassino) and Health Residences for Security Measures.
At the Department of Mental Health and Addictive Diseases, the Mental Health Consultation is established, assisted by the Department Director, which is attended by representatives of Associations of family members, users and volunteers who work in partnership with the services.
Department Function
The Department as a corporate organisational structure:
- Negotiates annual programme objectives and budgets with the company’s Strategic Management;
- Ensures the governance and coordination of the individual Complex Operating Units (UOC) related to it;
- Ensures the functioning and direction of the Department Committee;
- Promotes projects for the training and updating of personnel in order to guarantee, at a general level, an increase in professionalism and to allow, in particular, a more effective pursuit of the objectives set;
- Collaborates with the Health District and with other company structures and stipulates memoranda of understanding or operational protocols to regulate activities, in order to ensure continuity in care and the construction of articulated care paths;
- Program and manage departmental accounting expenditure, including for accredited facilities.
How to access
The Management of the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Diseases receives, by appointment, at the following times:
- from Monday to Friday 9.00 – 14.00;
- Tuesday and Thursday 9.00 am – 6.00 pm.
Our Location
Via Armando Fabi – 03100 Frosinone
