The territories of the practices of the trench: Origins, scope, desire

• Published in: Australian and New Zealand journal of family therapy 2023-03, Vol.44 (1), p.81-94
• Main Authors: Tedesco, Silvia, Cejas, Gustavo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescents; adoption; child abuse; Children; children's rights; Families & family life; psychosocial interventions; psychosocial vulnerability; restitution of children's rights; Rights; Social networks; Sociocultural factors; Therapists
• ISSN: 0814-723X; 1467-8438
• DOI: 10.1002/anzf.1526

Our work with children whose rights have been violated, with their families devastated by family violence and where the majority have been left out of the sociocultural systems and experiencing serious economic and educational difficulties, has taken us to our professional limit. The solitary and individual work, in the dim light of the office, left us without tools. As therapists, we can say that it has been necessary to break with our own mental schemes and to take a leap into the territory, the terrain itself. The learned university theories were questioned, forcing us to include a more humanising and less judgmental look at the work. A psychology of the trench was born for us. This paper articulates a work process that required something more than specific training in our subject matter. It summoned us as human beings capable of hosting suffering. From this starting point, and with an open mind and heart to go through its stages, this process is presented as a journey with advances and setbacks in its intervention modalities, systematising programs in permanent construction. Systematising practices is not an easy task. Familias Cuidando (Caring Families) and Adoptar es Posible (To Adopt is Possible) are the developmental spaces of our trench practices, practices that aim to accompany children, adolescents, and their families through the system of promotion and comprehensive protection of their rights. From Vicente López, a district in the province of Buenos Aires, our psycho‐socio‐educational and legal approach tries to be a link within collaborative and supportive practices; establishing ties, networks, and dialogues to strengthen the new paradigm aiming to support listening to the voice of children and adolescents; rescuing their childhoods, resignifying the different family models, and accompanying the construction of a life project for each one, in which we all fit.