Ti accolgo!

Publish date 01-10-2020

by Stefano Caredda

They are called "minors with special needs" and when it comes to finding a family for them to welcome them in temporary foster care, the difficulties are almost insurmountable. In the courts and in the facilities for minors they are known as the "difficult to place": they are children with serious disabilities, or victims of mistreatment and abuse, or have reached adolescence after having spent almost all of their life in the family home. They are also groups of brothers and sisters, who would like to keep together, avoiding painful separations.

There are hundreds of these children all over Italy, and to try to improve their lives there are also bodies and associations, which try to bridge the gap between the courts for minors (and social services) on the one hand and families willing to a commitment on paper so demanding, on the other. All this to make sure that no child or young person can accept custody. When the search is really difficult, the weapon of the public appeal is played, conveyed on the media and on social networks. Many times, the outcome is happy.
An example is that of Mario, an invented name for a six-month-old baby, all spent in a hospital in Northern Italy. He was born with a severe and difficult to manage psychomotor disability, which threw mum and dad into panic, already tried by other life experiences. They rarely visited him in the hospital in the first few months. The baby does not eat or breathe independently, but he has started to move his arms and legs and is making little progress.

To find him a home, the association M'aMa - Dalla Parte dei Bambini in recent weeks launched an appeal and among the various answers received, after a long conversation with the judges of the Court, it was decided that Mario will be welcomed into the house by Maria and Giuseppe (that's exactly what they are called). They, who have four children, are a foster couple with long experience: he is a teacher, she is a full-time mother, they are in their third experience as a bridge family, trained and supported to guarantee, with very short notice, the so-called prompt welcome to very small children, limiting the stay in hospital and avoiding the insertion in a residential structure. Helping them are their paternal grandparents, in turn parents of seven children, who have always supported the couple in their foster care process. «We are excited - Maria says on the eve of Mario's arrival - and also a little frightened; the cradle is already at home, the clothes too. Between me and my husband I am the most unconscious one who launches immediately, he is more rational and thoughtful, at first he always says no, then he is the one who falls in love first. As we went to do the interview and shared our doubts, one of our children asked us "But what if there was one of us alone and sick in the hospital?". They already loved him. We welcome Mario for a while, with all the love we have. We hope he likes us».


Stefano Caredda
NP August - September 2020

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