Amici dei Bambini has been working on the topic for many years in a very positive collaboration with European Commission: starting from previous projects and outputs (for instance latest "Guidelines for care-leavers' social inclusion" available at www.childout.org) has started a new project aiming at creating new models of work in order to favour their full inclusion in the society.

The project, called "Supporting life after institutional care" and financed by UE DG Social Affairs under PROGRESS programme, wants to study the introduction of a new professional figure - the social mediator -able to support young care-leavers (18-22 yrs old) in the medium term (3-5 yrs old) after they left care.

The social experimentation, planned in three major European cities - Sofia, Bucharest and Bologna, would like to analyse the process and the impact of the introduction of this referent person as well as of the initiatives related to this. The objective is to promote original and less expensive initiative in order to support care-leavers' passage towards adult life.

The social intermediary will work not only promoting a symmetrical tutorship with the youth, but as well as "activator" and "intermediary" of local resources available, public and private, in order to support young care-leavers' social inclusion.

The project sees the collaboration among local Municipality and Social Services, Local NGOs and of course Institute of research and Universities. But not only: the collaboration has been established with young care-leavers in those countries where social experimentation will take place, and in particular with the new-born association of young care-leavers in Bologna called "Agevolando" (ndr. Making it easy), member of AiBi's international network Il Melograno.

For further information, please do not hesitate to write to Amici dei Bambini, to Mr Agostino:   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .