The Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (UFMs) are a highly disadvantaged population that calls the response of the operators and the institutions in relation to the rights protection, support and care interventions that must be activated to help it. This paper records the results of an empirical research on the subject of risk and protective factors, based on the analysis of the narrative accounts of a sample of adolescents UFMs. The research assumes as a theoretical background the paradigm of Developmental Psychopathology, that emphasizes the construct of resilience as a concept able to account for people’s abilities to resist responding to the difficulties and hardships on the basis of their internal personal resources. Objectives and methods: The objective of this research is to perform an analysis of risk and protective factors in UFMs through encoding and recognising indicators of such factors in the reports collected. Narrative semistructured interviews were conducted in a sample of 26 UFMs residents in Italy in residential care centers for children in Emilia-Romagna. The accounts, after transcription, underwent an ad hoc content analysis based on a grid of indicators for the detection of risk and protective factors, with particular focus on the construct of resilience. The results outlines a large and very complex overview of the condition and the experience of these subjects, where, inspite the predominant presence of risk factors compared to protective factors, there are a number of indicators of resilience. These indicators seem to be mainly related to motivation to act in relation to a purpose functional to the Self growth, like reaching the host country, or the ability to adapt and tolerate considerable difficulties and hardships, particularly in the risky experience of the journey, although in the context of a functioning in which there is a certain degree of persecutory experiences and trends towards concrete thinking.

The condition and the life experience of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Italy: the resilience among risk and protective factors

BASTIANONI, Paola;
2011

Abstract

The Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (UFMs) are a highly disadvantaged population that calls the response of the operators and the institutions in relation to the rights protection, support and care interventions that must be activated to help it. This paper records the results of an empirical research on the subject of risk and protective factors, based on the analysis of the narrative accounts of a sample of adolescents UFMs. The research assumes as a theoretical background the paradigm of Developmental Psychopathology, that emphasizes the construct of resilience as a concept able to account for people’s abilities to resist responding to the difficulties and hardships on the basis of their internal personal resources. Objectives and methods: The objective of this research is to perform an analysis of risk and protective factors in UFMs through encoding and recognising indicators of such factors in the reports collected. Narrative semistructured interviews were conducted in a sample of 26 UFMs residents in Italy in residential care centers for children in Emilia-Romagna. The accounts, after transcription, underwent an ad hoc content analysis based on a grid of indicators for the detection of risk and protective factors, with particular focus on the construct of resilience. The results outlines a large and very complex overview of the condition and the experience of these subjects, where, inspite the predominant presence of risk factors compared to protective factors, there are a number of indicators of resilience. These indicators seem to be mainly related to motivation to act in relation to a purpose functional to the Self growth, like reaching the host country, or the ability to adapt and tolerate considerable difficulties and hardships, particularly in the risky experience of the journey, although in the context of a functioning in which there is a certain degree of persecutory experiences and trends towards concrete thinking.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11392/1533385
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