Care Leavers’ Experimentation

The National experimentation of interventions in favour of those who, upon reaching the age of consent, live outside their family of origin on the basis of a court order originates from the provisions of Article 1, paragraph 250, of Law no. 205 of 2017. As part of the Italian Fund for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, this law provides for a yearly reserve of €5 million for 2018, 2019 and 2020 for experimental interventions to prevent poverty and social exclusion and enabling those who, on reaching the age of majority, complete their pathways to autonomy and live outside their family of origin because they have been removed from it for protection purposes on the basis of a court order.

The experimentation is based on a complex governance of the interventions involving the Ministry, the Regions and the Local Autonomous Bodies. They all cooperate within a national steering committee and take part in monitoring the experimentation and discussing its results.

The Care Leavers national experimentation is a project for adolescent males and females living outside their families, either in residential communities or in foster care, in order to facilitate their autonomy once they reach the age of majority.

Care leavers, supported by the operators involved in defining their individual action plans, can choose from the following pathways:

• Higher/University education pathway;

• Vocational training and Employment guidance/Work integration pathway.

The individual action plans are conceived as a meaningful framework to integrate and use all the resources that are available at national and local level for care leavers including, first and foremost, the Citizenship Income, the Youth Guarantee and the Right to Study schemes, as well as the ‘autonomy grant’ provided for by the Experimentation. The individual plans are for 36 months and, in any case, cannot go beyond the age of 21.

The plans identify a key and innovative figure, the so-called tutor for autonomy. The tutor does not have anything to do with the local services and the adults involved in receiving future care leavers. The tutor is tasked with supporting and mentoring the adolescents.

Following a five-year cooperation agreement pursuant to Article 15 of Law no. 241/90 between the Istituto degli Innocenti and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, the Institute provides technical and scientific assistance by coordinating the implementation of the actions.

The Institute provides national tutors, training, supervision, detailed materials and support for the monitoring and evaluating functions.

The Experimentation aims at supporting adolescents in establishing relationships that can be useful to take the best pathway. The issue of autonomy drives services to adopt a paradigm shift on multiple levels by challenging the way professions and organisations function and are perceived.