Progetto Caregiver - Fondazione Orizzonte Autonomia ETS

Being the parent of a child with a disability means rewriting your own balance every day, learning to live between absolute love and invisible exhaustion, between hope and uncertainty. It means becoming, sometimes without warning and always without preparation, a caregiver: a central and indispensable figure, yet still too often forgotten even at an institutional level.

It is precisely from this awareness that the Caregiver Project of Fondazione Orizzonte Autonomia ETS was created: a path that places families at the center, and in particular those who care every day for their child with disabilities. The goal is not only to offer support, but to create spaces of recognition, relief, and personal growth. Because no one can continue to care for others if they do not, in turn, receive listening, respect, and support.

The project operates on three fronts: on one hand, a permanent psychological support service, available at the Foundation's headquarters in Camerano and coordinated by Dr. Rachele Recanatini, a psychologist and psychotherapist with extensive experience in supporting families with children with disabilities. On the other hand, programs designed and developed together with the caregivers themselves: meetings, workshops, moments of listening, and creative activities. Alongside these, our Psychological Support Desk provides ongoing assistance to parents.

Finally, there is also the home program, an at-home support service with professional educators, where we assist the caregiver directly in the place and moment in which they carry out their role of care. Everything starts from the ground up, from real needs, from shared planning with those who know firsthand what is truly needed.

During 2025, one of the most meaningful examples was a three-month program dedicated to ten caregiver mothers. An experience crafted with great sensitivity, starting from the body and reaching the soul. Gentle yoga sessions for those who had never dared to carve out time for themselves; breathing and relaxation techniques; excursions in the Conero Park, where the breath expands and the gaze meets new horizons; creative workshops inspired by Kintsugi, the Japanese art that repairs cracks with gold, transforming fragility into beauty. Each meeting was a precious piece of a new mosaic: that of self-awareness and self-care.

What left the deepest mark, however, was the group. A shared space among people who “don’t need to explain anything.” The meeting of mothers who understand each other without the need for words. The commitment — written in the calendar — that becomes an appointment with themselves, with their own dignity, with a possibility of rebirth.

The project also received the sponsorship and support of the Marche Equal Opportunities Commission, precisely for its value in promoting an idea of female caregiving that is not only about sacrifice, but also about recognition, support, and opportunity.