The reception of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Italy: Life stories of young people in residential care centres

Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (UFMs) represent a population of individuals with severe psychopathological and psychosocial risk, knowledge of which requires the attention of the society and of the workers, in relation to the possible routes for their protection and support. Objective and method. The research is based on the analysis of narrative accounts in response to semi-structured interviews with 20 male UFMs, resident in Italy and coming from different countries. The themes explored through the interviews relate to the needs and relational experiences through the narration of life events of: the past in the homeland, the experience of travel, and the experience on the present in the host country and in the residential care center where these young people are welcomed. Results. The interviews were subjected to a content analysis, using an ad hoc version of Luborsky's CCRT method. The results outline the profile of a group that expresses needs in some way different from the normal adolescent population, where prevails a degree of persecutory experiences. Significantly, however, the subjects refer to a choice and a goal - reaching the host country and the residential care center, such as a goal successfully achieved, which seems to make an important contribution to the sense of consistency of identity