Foster care as a relational practice. A quantitative research on case files of the juvenile court of Milan

In the child protection system, foster care aims at placing children in need with another family available to take care of them for a certain period, whenever their parents and relatives are not able to provide them with adequate care. In the Italian context, foster care represents even today a challenge not only for social workers and Juvenile Courts but also for all the people directly involved such as the children, their birth families and the foster families. The research presented in this paper aims to compensate, at least in part, for the lack of studies on foster care in the Italian context. Its purpose is to examine the Italian foster care by analysing the case files of fostered children managed by the Juvenile Court of Milan. In the first part of the chapter, a brief description of the Italian foster care system and a reflection on fostering as a relational practice are presented. Subsequently, a review of the international research about fostering. In the third part, the purpose of the research and the method applied are explained. Given the literature on the topic, an explanation and discussion will follow on the findings about the participation of fostered children, birth families and foster parents in the initial stages and during the foster care placement.