THE MINOR PLACED OUTSIDE THE HOME

&

THE UN CONVENTION ON THE RIGTHS OF THE CHILD

FOOD FOR THOUGHTS

by ANEP - ItalyAssociazione Nazionale Educatori Professionali

Index:

• how minors are placed in the Residential Child Care Centre

• why the minors are placed in the Residential Child Care Centre and the answers given by Italy

• the main reference laws about the Residential Child Care Centre for minors

• references to the UN Convention on the right of the child Residential Child Care Centre in everyday

What we mean for…

• Comunità per minori: the translation could be Residential Child Care Centre or Foster Care Centre. It means: Little residential communities (max 20 places) with educational programs and family organizations

• Comunità terapeutico/riabilitativa: Treatment Centre?

• Affido: foster care. Per noi affido è affido eterofamiliare (foster family), affido ai servizi sociali ????

• Inserimento:when a minor go in a residential centre. Inclusion???

The outplacement of minors from the family in Italy

is decided:

By Court:

juvenile court decrees removal of minors from the family

due to mistreatment, abuse, parental neglect, or in the

case of crime committed by the child

By administrative way:

when the minor is abandoned or living in unhealthy place,

public authorities (municipalities) places him in a safe place.

Then the Juvenile Court decrees (art.403 Civil Code)

The outplacement of minors from the family in Italy

is decided:

By the consent of the family

inclusion in the Residential Child Care Centre

is still reported to Court (tutelary judge and juvenile

court)

The outplacement of minors from the family in Italy

is decided:

By consequentiality

for example, about unaccompanied foreign minors or about minors that are less than ten years and living with mothers who have committed crime punishable by not more

than 4 years (art.47 ter L.354)

The outplacement of minors from the family in Italy

is decided:

Social services have the foster care of the minors

• Social services are obliged to draw an Individual Project for the minor together with other services and institutions.

• Social services find the better solution for the child for his outplacement (residential child care centre, foster family, adoption) and regulate visits and relationships with the family of origin.

The inclusion of a minor in Residential Child Care

Centre • This case when, for various reasons,

the minor can’t stay with his family no more.

• The Residential Child Care Centre is a housing structure, normally organized by family model, with a limited number of children, and work an educational staff.

• In the Residential Child Care Centre are re-created the conditions to meet the needs of protection, assistance, education and instruction.

• The Residential Child Care Centre offers the opportunity to be welcomed and cared for in an alternative family (art.20 of the Convention: States shall provide protection replacement).

• The Residential Child Care Centre, together with social services, also aims to provide support to the family of origin in order to overcome the difficulties and facilitate the return of the minor in his/her family of origin.

The inclusion of a minor in the Residential Child Care

Centre

The Law 285/97

The article 3

• provides for the temporary reception of minors in small residential care centres that could be educational and rehabilitative.

• reiterates the need for alternatives to the placement of minors in educational or social institutions aimed to overreach institutionalization and orphanages.

The Law 184/1983 (amended by Law 149/2001)

• This law states: "The institutionalization must be passed by a family trust or, when it is not possible, by insertion in the family’s residential child care house.

• The community' family has organizational characteristics and interpersonal relationships similar to those of a family (art.2 comme 4).

• The institutionalisation must be passed by December 31, 2006. Now in Italy don’t exist residential child instituions no more.

• The institutionalization must be passed by 31 December 2006.

• The communities are/should be in a location near the place of residence of the family of origin of the minors (art.2 comma 2).

The Law 184/1983 (amended by Law 149/2001)

The Ministerial Decree 308/2001

• This Decree establishes the minimum requirements of community for minors and reaffirm for these the family model and a organization adapted to the needs educational welfare of children and adolescents.

• However, this Decree assigns to each region the definition of the specific organization.

The Ministerial Decree 308/2001

The article 5 provides:

• the location of the Residencial Child Care Center in inhabited places and easily accessible by public transport.

• the presence in the Residencial Child Care Center of suitable social and health professionals (does not say what professionals)

• the preparation of an individualized educational project for guest minors

• the organization of activities in observance of the normal rhythm of life.

The article 4 provides:

• Determines precisely modality and times of surveillance of the condition of minors outside the family context (in foster care or in the Residencial Child Care Center).

• The Local Social Service is responsible for the program of assistance for the minors that stay in Residencial Child Care Center or in foster care and has the obligation to inform the tutelary judge or the juvenile court about condition of these (report every six months or more often if required by the authority).

Law 149/2001

Also direct control and monitoring by Judicial Authority are provided:

TM inspectors may visit the communities where they consider it appropriate and without notice and the community periodically (every six months) must transmit to the TM all data relating to the conditions of minors in the community (health, interventions activated, contacts with the natural family, etc.)

Law 149/2001

Two questions1. Are the legislative definitions,

controls and monitoring really significant for fully implementing the Convention on the rights of children and adolescents?

2. Which is the responsibility of every social educator to enforce the children’s rights by the UN Convention in his daily work and in a Residential Child Care Center too?

1°answer

By the italian law, the fundamental rights of children in the Residential Child Care Center are so followed:

• the minors (Italian, foreign or unaccompanied children) eat (art.6 Convention), sleep (art.31 Convention), are clothed, follow personal hygiene, receive medical care (art.24 Convention)

• In the Residential Child Care Center minors perform the same activities of a child in a family, such as the school placement (art.28 Convention), the inclusion in extra-curricular activities of socialization (art.31 Convention), receiving medical care. They are listening (art.6,12,13 Convention) to draw up their individualized educational project (PEI) agreed (where possible) and drawn up according to the emerging educational needs.

1°answer

2°answer

The contribution that social educators can give for fully realizating children's rights in a residential care centre is steady:

• in the concrete activities carried out each day with each child;

• in the deep relationship that daily the social educator builds with each single minor;

• in the empathic listening that social educator is able to give;

• always thinking and care to ethical responsibility in the conduct of their profession;

• thinking and trusting that the minor that now is in the Residential Child Care Center, in the future will be a man or a woman able to safeguard the rights of other children.

2°answer

Good luck educator!!!

& good luck

man or woman for the future!!!

by ANEP