Taking flight -Prendere il volo | Care Leavers Network

The "take flight" social inclusion program, established pursuant to art. 17 of the L.R. n. 4 of 2006, was created to respond to a concrete need: at the age of 18, young guests in residential communities for minors often do not yet have the necessary maturity for a completely independent life or have not yet completed the journey training. Therefore, it may happen that, if discharged from the residential community without adequate support, they are unable to build an independent life project and risk not completing the process of social integration started within the same community.
Similar situations arise with minors in a situation of straight family custody or followed by the Juvenile Justice Center, placed in ministerial communities, housing communities or in penal institutions for minors. Especially in the latter case the need for qualified support is highlighted in order to promote paths of social re-inclusion.
The presence on the regional territory of consolidated good practices, relative to the management of the delicate transition from the community to autonomy, has pushed the legislator to make an innovative path possible. "Taking flight" is the name that many operators have attributed to this program in the first years of experimentation and a name that fully expresses its aims:
represent a significant opportunity for the growth of young people coming from a highly structured educational context and who are starting their first steps towards an autonomous and responsible adult life, ensuring that they are wider and more resistant to lead the journey in the adult world

"Taking flight" is a personalized accompanying program aimed at allowing care leavers to successfully face the transition from the context protected to autonomy and to complete their training.
"Taking flight" adopts an innovative model that jointly evaluates and values three aspects of the youth life:

"place of life" (family of origin, apartment group, rented room, housing community);
“life path" (scholastic insertion, formative insertion, job insertion);
“light support" through the figure of a social mediation Tutor.

The ultimate goal of the program is the promotion of equality in access to educational opportunities,professional and social services present in the territory in favor of the young people who live in conditions ofparticular disadvantage.
The funding provided for in the "Taking Flight” program is therefore a contribution aimed at supporting education and training, including all types of training at work, including the atypical internship. This contribution will allow the young person who is engaged in this path to pay for accommodation, meals and personal expenses.

The central element of the program is the presence of the social mediation Tutor, a role endowed with personal qualities (affective maturity and ability to take charge of the other) and of solid theoretical and technical preparation, who accompanies the young persons in their journey of autonomy with the aim of strengthening their ability to build an independent life. Another characterizing element of this program is the co-planning between the various subjects involved in the path: because a tight and cohesive network work is required for the success of the program around and together with/to the young protagonist of the intervention, all the actors of the process are called to actively cooperate at every stage; this is made possible also thanks to the strategies of social mediation implemented by the Tutor among the primary networks (family, peer group, etc.) and secondary schools (local community, school, world of work, etc.) of young people.

"Taking Flight" is the first public program that systematically supports care leavers in the transition to adulthood. The program also has the merit to use a process monitoring that allows to understand outcomes and critical issues. In addition to that, this program is binding for the region and the local authorities, that leads to secure funds devoted to the projects. In 2018 the Italian government established an experimental fund, for three years, for care leavers. The hope is that this experimentation could become law in Italy.