About Us

Centro Studi Affido / Foster Care Study Center

Centro Studi Affido is an Italian Non-profit organisation committed to protecting every child’s and young person’s right to grow up in a family.

We work to promote, strengthen and develop family foster care and family-based support for children and young people who cannot, temporarily or permanently, live with their family of origin. Our approach recognises that children’s wellbeing depends on supportive, stable and meaningful relationships: every child and young person should have one more bond they can rely on.

Centro Studi Affiorganised together university lecturers, researchers, practitioners, students and experts in social organisations, education, and family support. We work alongside children and young people, birth parents, foster carers, professionals, public services, voluntary organisations and local communities.

Our activity is organised around five interconnected areas:

- Scientific and professional information, making research, policy developments, methods and tools accessible to professionals and families;
- Training and continuing professional development, for social workers, educators, psychologists, foster-care teams, public authorities and third-sector organisations;
- Consultancy and technical support, helping services to design, organise and improve foster-care and family-support programmes;
- Research and study, producing evidence and encouraging dialogue between academic knowledge, professional practice and the lived experience of children, young people and families;
- Advocacy, contributing to policies and public debate on children’s rights, family-based care, the prevention of unnecessary separation and support for care leavers.

We believe that foster care must be embedded in a wider system of prevention, participation and support for families. For this reason, our work combines attention to individual care pathways with the orgaorganisationallity of services, inter-agency collaboration and the development of inclusive local communities.

Centro Studi Affido is rooted in the Italian context while being open to European and international exchange. We welcome opportunities for research collaboration, training partnerships, comparative studies and shared initiatives that improve family-based care and the transition to adulthood for care-experienced young people.

Together, we work for a culture of care in which no child or young person is left without the relationships, support and opportunities needed to thrive.