Foster care is a gesture of love toward vulnerable children, to help them live again a happy life. Fondazione L’Albero della Vita supports those who decide to begin this wonderful journey
Have you ever thought about foster care, if you are a family (married couple or not, with or without children, or even single) desiring to do something really important in terms of personal enrichment and make yourself available for children and adolescents in need?
Giulia, Michael and Sara are only a few names of children that have been separated from their families because of serious problems preventing them from growing up happily in a safe environment.
These children and adolescents have the right to experience the daily normality of going to school, coming back home, enjoying their snack time, as well as having someone putting them to bed and comforting them in tough moments. That’s how you become an important point of reference for these children, who need the presence and guidance of an adult in order to develop their potentials and grow up happily. Children can live in another family, but still keep the bond with their own parents, with whom one day they will hopefully be reunited.
What does foster care actually mean?
Foster care is a wonderful gesture of love. Foster care means welcoming a child in one’s family, but, unlike adoption, on a non-permanent basis, so only for some time. It means helping minors during a rehabilitation process to overcome the difficulties experienced in the past, while their natural parents work to solve their issues. At the end of this journey, children go back to their family of origin, but the bond with foster families is normally such that their family becomes an extended one.
Foster children: who are they?
Foster children are minors with troubled families and are often victims of abuse and ill-treatments or of serious neglect. The court has decided to temporarily separate them from their natural parents for their own good. While the latter work on themselves to solve their problems, minors are assigned to a family who welcomes them, shows them the beauty of the daily life and of being loved and taken care of.
How does Fondazione L’Albero della Vita help foster families?
In order to support and guide families during this journey, Fondazione L’Albero della Vita organises awareness-raising conferences, in order to provide foster families with proper social, legal and psychological information. It favours the creation of family networks enabling foster families to share their experiences and help themselves mutually —even with would-be foster foster families— to solve obstacles. It also offers psychologists and educators’ support to help families during the process with practical tools and specific spaces.
The project is active in the Italian region Lombardia, in the provinces of Milan, Bergamo and Brescia.
Il progetto è attivo in Lombardia nelle provincie di Milano, Bergamo, Brescia.
A network to help children and families
Fondazione L’Albero della Vita joined efforts with the Italian organisations CAF, CAM e Comunità Nuova, which have been promoting for years activities in favour of children and family. Their goals have been raising people’s awareness on foster care, getting to know and preparing families willing to take care of children and adolescents, as well as supporting foster families during this experience (as a temporary joint venture). Together they implement interventions of psycho-socio-educational support in foster care management acting on behalf of the Municipality of Milan, in close collaboration
Coordinamento Affidi (www.affidomilano.it, Project “AffidATI”, Via Vincenzo Monti 11, infoaffidati@gmail.com, 3407088698 +39 340 708 8698)
LWhat foster parents, Lucia and Giovanni, felt
This is how foster parents, Lucia and Giovanni, describe the first time they met Jasmine, the 7-year-old girl that will soon become their foster daughter*:
“It was a meeting full of emotions and silences! Jasmine is very quiet. We respect her way of being and we followed the tips of her educator. She was holding in her arms the doll we gave her! We gave her a storybook, promising that we would read together a story next time. She is a wonderful little girl and we can’t wait to see her again!”
As of today, Progetto Affido [project foster care] made aware of this great choice of love more than 170 families willing to become protagonists and managed more than 100 foster placements.
How to participate
Should you be interested, you can call us at (+39) 331-3316525 or send an e-mail to:
affido@alberodellavita.org.
