Have you ever wondered what happens to unaccompanied minors when they reach the age of majority?
Children under the age of 18 who are separated from their parents or guardians are defined as separated children and/or “unaccompanied minors”. The presence of unaccompanied foreign minors in Italy has been constantly growing over the last years. At the beginning of 2018, the number of unaccompanied minors only in Sicily was 5503, 81% of them were 16-17 years old. The State and its institutions provide care, protection, and assistance to young people up to the age of 18. But what happens after? What do care-leavers do when they turn 18 years old?
For every young person turning 18 it is a crucial life transition. The success of the transition to adulthood highly depends on the connection and supportive guidance of an adult figure. Young person’s emancipation involves personal growth and change of social role, but if the young adult is left unsupported the challenges are many. Young people under residential care often have to cope with non-child-friendly structures, where the guardian can be an abstract figure difficult to reach, not always capable to gradually mediate the transition into adulthood. In such circumstances, care-leavers need extensive support, they need someone to refer to, someone who is equipped with knowledge and skills and can guide young person through the transition period.
Considering the needs of care-leavers and of professionals working with them, INTEGRA project has been designed to address the need to equip residential care professionals to successfully support the social and professional integration of unaccompanied minors who are leaving care-systems.
INTEGRA partners met in Nicosia, Cyprus on 18-19 June 2018 for the first project meeting to get to know each other, plan in detail all activities and share their commitment to contribute to the empowerment and social integration of care-leavers.
During 2 years of the INTEGRA project we will:
- Analyse the needs of minors in residential care when transitioning to adulthood life, and practices and needs of residential care professionals in relation to the care and integration of unaccompanied minors. This will be achieved through a research and contextual Ageing – out needs
- Create a sustainable cooperation between stakeholders, residential care providers and care-leavers through the multi-agency Collaboration Continuum Network, in order to facilitate, foster and safeguard the inclusion of care-leavers in terms of labour as well as the wider society.
- Develop the Mentoring Integration Programme, outlining a set of activities that can be performed by residential care professionals working with care-leavers, and the Assessment toolkit supporting personalised assessment of children in residential care.
- Train residential care professionals as Leaving Care Mentors to enhance their capacity to support the resilience, entrepreneurial drive and forward goal projection skills of children in care.
- Finally, we will establish a Platform 4 Cooperation where various stakeholders, such as partners, residential care providers and post-care stakeholders, can interact across borders to provide the best possible services to youngsters.
About the project
INTEGRA – Multidisciplinary Mentorship program to support the entrepreneurship of children in care and young care-leavers is co-funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Commission.
The INTEGRA approach envisions a personalised participatory framework, where the stakeholders take the role of guiding, connecting, mediating and supporting the children in the restoration process of new reference points for their future socio-economic inclusion as a persona integra into the community.
Partner
Who are INTEGRA partners?
- Coordinator: “Hope For Children” UNCRC Policy Center(Cyprus)
- Associacao Portuguesa Conversas De Psicologia Apcdp(Portugal)
- Associacio per a la Creacio i Estudis de Projectes Socials C.E.P.S.(Spain)
- The Smile of the Child(Greece)
- C Management center limited(Cyprus)
- CESIE (Italy)
For further information
Read more about INTEGRA.
Follow #INTEGRAeu, be updated on the developments of the project and share your ideas about the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors or contact Cloé Saint-Nom, cloe.saintnom@cesie.org if you would like to be involved in the activities of the project.
