The first criterion is to consider the whole family, and not just the persons with disabilities, as the clients of the project and services for disability. This criterion is the product of a critical reflection upon the tendency of the services for disabilities to address the persons with disability in an individualistic way with the aim to cure/reduce the disability. With this criterion we want to stress the idea that the organizations providing services for disabilities have the opportunity to organize services to address the daily problems faced by the whole family instead of trying to reduce/cure the disability.
The second criterion, strictly related to the first, is analyse the requests posed by the family members to the services for disabilities to find out the main problems faced by the different family in their daily life and set up services oriented to them. The requests of the families in this sense are not always clear and in many cases are related to significant emotional problems that risk to remain implicit and not addressed by the services. The interviews show that the problems of the families are specific and related to the way the relationships of the persons with disabilities within the family and within the local context are organized.
The third criterion is to plan and discuss the objectives of the services with the families, the persons with disabilities and others formal or informal stakeholders to project and to monitor the interventions in a shared way. In particular, it is very important to build the continuity of the interventions used by the families from childhood to adulthood to make the services going along the life of the families in a reliable way and to help the families in making plans for the future. This can prevent the development of a distrustful and conflicting relationship among the care service providers, the families and the other agencies providing social services. In this regard the interviews shows that many problems are related to the difficulty in defining and going along towards a shared goal and to a lack of coordination.
The fourth criterion is to provide moments of fun and conviviality that the family members can experience together with others. In a context where services are usually focused on rehabilitation and therapy, few services are in fact usually addressed to build enjoyable moments within the family or to make the families get in touch with other families and professionals. This can reduce the feeling of social isolation of the families helping them to be more confident in getting in touch with others members of their community. This means also to work to build a frame where family can overcome the embarrassment and the fear of being stigmatized for their problems and where can be easier to ask for an help by professionals if it is needed.
The fifth criterion is to set up useful/productive activities within the project and services for mental disabilities to give the clients the chance to overcome the role of eternally assisted persons starting to carry out an useful social function within their family and community.
