Children in difficulty: a space that creates hope

A variety of difficulties can be experienced during infancy, affecting children, parents and adolescents in different ways. Young victims of violence who act out at school, confused teenagers who communicate their struggles through rebellious behaviour, mothers who have been through abuse and difficult pregnancies, and don’t know where to find support: for over 40 years, Milan’s Associazione Centro Aiuto Minori e Famiglie (CAF) has assisted the youngest victims of experiences like these. In particular, CAF works to protect children of all ages, providing assistance during difficult moments in their lives, supporting their recovery from situations of violence or after their removal from the family, offering them the reassurance, hope and warmth they need to grown serenely. CAF takes on the most serious of cases, welcoming children the Juvenile Court has removed from their families and giving them shelter in the association’s Residential Centres. Here, with complex and delicate work aimed at rebuilding their capacity for relationships and feelings, the Association’s operators focus on healing children’s and teenagers’ emotional wounds, helping them overcome severe trauma and abuse. The youngest children, aged between 3 and 12, find accommodation in three psycho-educational Residential Centres in the province of Milan, where they are absorbed, as much as possible, into the normality of a routine made of regular rhythms and daily life. In this setting, a multidisciplinary team of specialists – including psychologists, pedagogy and neuropsychiatry experts, paediatricians and clinical supervisors – assists the children in their journey of treatment and re-elaboration of trauma with psychological support and psycho-pedagogical integration, so that they can return to their families (whenever parenting skills can be improved), find new ones through adoption or foster care, or continue on their life path in a centre for adolescents. Always drawn to childhood issues, Enel Cuore supports the work of Associazione Centro Aiuto Minori e Famiglie by contributing to its project to renovate the interiors of its three homes for minors, known as “Elves, Gnomes and Sprites”, to replace their flooring and bedroom furnishings. Details Location: Milan Association: Associazione Centro Aiuto Minori e Famiglie (CAF) Beneficiaries: 30 children Contribution: €110,000 Year/Duration: 2018

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The “Renovate the Interiors of the Elves, Gnomes and Sprites Care Homes for Minors” Project

The “Renovate the Interiors of the Elves, Gnomes and Sprites Care Homes for Minors” Project