SMPP: specific mobbing prevention programme

Purpose: to establish a public prevention model against negative acts in the workplace transferable in Italy. Early in 2007 in Italy there was not still a specific legislation on psychological harassment within work environment. Only at the local level Autonomous Region “Friuli Venezia Giulia” had already intervened on April 8th , 2005 with the Regional Law n° 7 in order to pursue the development of culture of respect for individual rights and the protection of its integrity, promoting projects against moral and psychological harassment in the workplace and activation of neutral clearing post. The organization of these Clearing Post, was in charge of those local Authorities able to implement self-projects to combat the phenomenon of bullying at work also adopting new approaches and solutions to the problem. The Municipality of Trieste was the first one to activate in Italy, in February 2007, this Clearing Post starting a clear path methodology called SMPP for the establishment of an integrated system of prevention composed by all those actors involved at any title in Italy on the phenomenon of bullying at work. The project has been defined in 4 phases: Phase 1) the activation of Neutral Clearing Post, employing 7 professionals of various training (psychologist, psychiatrist, doctor of work, forensic, human resource manager , social worker, lawyer) and adopting multidisciplinary approach to the study of the individual cases. Phase 2) sharing a Declaration of Agreement with programmatic functions developed with all institutional Authorities, Agencies and Trade Unions present in the local territory to find a collocation for this new listening service and promote the creation of a public network in support of victims of harassment. Phase 3) determining a joint policy of public information to reduce information gaps addressed to the working population, improving institutional communication. Phase 4) the definition of a scientific research in collaboration with the Department of Psychology of the University of Trieste for a pilot study on analysis of epidemiological data in Italy, today not available. Leitmotiv of the project was the belief that the theories about bullying at work and research related thereto, are influenced by the cultural heritage of their single countries, leading to outline the different frames of this phenomenon and also to classify always new types of it: this happens also in Italy where the culture and practice of management of interpersonal conflict is rarely used in relation to other countries of the European Community and the productive reality of our country is unique in the world. Also in Italy the detected diseases are similar to those described by studies carried out in other European countries, but their emergence is different and influenced by environment: cultural, social and economic influence. It is this peculiarity of the Italian context, influenced by cultural heritage and local production models that leads to an endemic phenomenology and still to be analyzed. The north-east of Italy, the "miracle" of the small and medium enterprises, known and exported all over the world, is the frame in which Municipality action takes place in our Region, with a clear conscience to promote this initiative unique in kind for Italy, working for the creation of an integrated network composed of public institutions with different skills. The Municipality welcomes and endorses the idea of designing a standard for the prevention and the study of workplace diseases, not restricting its intervention to a mere service company, which is reserved for its employees, but making it part of a broader perspective of improving the living conditions of citizens working. David Osborne already wrote in "Reinventing Government" that the public Administration have to be a driver in satisfying the needs of the community and in this sense, the City of Trieste wanted to place in Italian context by providing an operational instrument to world of work to reduce the effects of bullying at work and prevent as much as possible this problem. State of implementation of SMPP: The first two phases have been implemented with the creation of a network composed of local public Authorities: Company for Health Services; National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work; Councilor Parity; Ombudsperson; Trade Unions. The third phase has begun with a programm of public communication to be carried out in the first months of 2008 and turned to citizenship. The fourth phase, that one of scientific research, is to begin in 2008. Conclusion: We believe that the work done so far has been possible by virtue of the constitutional principle of subsidiary and also by the process of devolution, adopted by the Italian Government, which has allowed local institutions to meet, in full autonomy, the real needs of their population. We hope for 2008, as a result of that feedback derived from our local experience, that we can transfer the model SMPP through a public communication strategy of bottom-up to national levels, and thus covering the gaps currently found in public policies of prevention just adopted in other countries of the European Community