The opportunity to listen to direct testimonies, to discuss and learn new approaches to increasingly complex problems. “Constellations of care” was all this, the conference organized in Catania from the National coordination of communities for minors (CNCM). The next one, it was announced today, will take place on 23 and 24 October 2025 in Venice.
The appointment took place between Palazzo della Cultura and Palazzo BiscariThe 23 and 24 May 2024. The title comes from a suggestion: that the care of a minor is a set of activities, many of which are linked to listening. A constellation, precisely, made of gestures rather than words, of movements all connected to each other which, together, constitute the compass of educators.
«The path that we are all taking is this: trying to identify the interventions that allow us to better treat all the minors we welcome», he explains Gianni Fulvi, president of the CNCM. «The main thing that emerged in the reports of important pedagogists and specialists who intervened (psychologists, psychiatrists, neuropsychiatrists) is that more importance must be given to the pedagogical aspect of the growth of boys and girls. The educator must act in everyday life, but know the neurological, psychological or psychiatric functioning mechanisms it should help him to better define the educational intervention and avoid making mistakes.”
Young people live in communities for minors, in some cases very young people, who live outside their families of origin. They are people who often come from situations of various kinds of hardship and who need care, welcome, reassurance and protection. As well as access to educational paths that take into account their starting condition.
«One of the girls we heard from and who comes from community backgrounds said something that really struck me – continues Fulvi – And that is: being born into a dysfunctional family is destiny. Ending up in a dysfunctional community is not. This is one point: we must guarantee all minors a system that works best for them. If they are angry, we can work on anger management. But we must also ask ourselves: why do they try it? A boy who arrives in our community why should he trust us? Our work must be slow, steady and, often, even silent».
«As educators we must increasingly implement our skills. We need to know how to decipher certain behaviors and many actions, for example those compulsive, explosive or self-harming. And we must integrate with the work of specialists”, he intervenes Paolo Carli, vice president of Coordination. «Society has changed, the strong points have changed: it is a society in which one’s own well-being matters more and more than the well-being of the community and this is reflected in the loss of references – adds Carli – For example, the school, as an institution, is less respected than twenty or thirty years ago. But we could say, more generally, that the educational habitat in which previously boys and girls found that adults spoke, all of them, a single language has weakened.”
«There is a greater fragility of adults – comments Fulvi – And, moreover, the services have failed, the responses from the territories have disappeared. When we started setting up communities for minors, forty years ago, we thought we only had to offer a home, because we would find everything else in the area. Instead the territory has become impoverished, and we have found ourselves increasingly having to offer answers: no longer just reception, but also training and job placement.”
The next national conference of the National Coordination of Communities for Minors will be held in Venice, on 23 and 24 October 2025. We will talk about the care of those who need to be cared for: «Not only educators, but also social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, families, parents – announces Gianni Fulvi – Communities are called to deal with it».
