How to prepare professionals for leaving care: a training challenge

This paper will present some pedagogical reflections on the training needs of professionals involved in childhood protection system, with regard to the leaving care phase of children and young people placed in residential care facilities. The considerations here illustrated are related to the qualitative analysis of the first results collected from the training course developed by SOS Children’s Villages Italy (within a wider partnership lead by SOS Children’s Villages International) as part of the two-year project Prepare for Leaving Care (co-funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship –REC-Programme of the European Commission, 2017-2018). This paper will present the results of the evaluation of Italian training courses realised during the past year in order to teach how to embed a child rights based approach into their daily work with focus on the leaving care phases. Finally, the paper will underlined how the training of professionals involved in childhood protection system is a pedagogical challenge [1] in terms of developing a multi-professional équipe and high level of competences –included emotional ones [2]– in order to sustain young people in developing their own project of life.