Life after institutional care. Equal opportunities and social inclusion for young people: identification and promotion of best practices

The care leavers are post-institutionalised young people that have to leave the residential placements where they have grown when reaching 18 years old. Young care leavers who lived for a long period of time the experience of a protective measure outside their birth-family represent a target-group of persons at great risk of poverty and social exclusion. These young people are often absolutely de-socialised, without any family-relationship, without daily autonomy, without neither skills nor chances for job employment, often without housing opportunities, exposed to different kinds of exploitation such as child trafficking, prostitution, criminal activities, begging, etc. (this is especially true in Eastern European countries), at risk of social and psychological disease and deviance. The project aims at studying their experience of transition to the outside world and evaluating possible services of support they might have received, as well as their main needs.

The main results are: a better understanding of the issue of care leaving and of the problems faced by the target and a mapping of the services in place for the transition to the outside world.

The available products are:

• report about the field phase related to biographic experiences of educators (15 interviews) and care leavers (25 interviews), as well as mapping of services;
• closed seminars and round tables for actors of the child protection system;
• open final conference;
• publication with internationally valid and multilingual guidelines for the social inclusion of care leavers.