6 Country Reports on Youth Work - Jugendpolitik in Europa

etc. In many Italian regions, the Catholic Church, with its parishes and broad range of
training activities, has played a relevant role in these endeavours, but unfortunately there has
been no opportunity for socialisation and participation activated and realised directly by
public institutions that was not linked to adhesion to associations or organisations of some
kind.
There are several reasons for this problem, but the most important one is that strong policy
actions regarding young people have often been rejected. The passage to adult and
professional life, together with education in favour of social participation, have been matters
for the family, school, and associations.
In Italy there is no clear definition of youth work and, up to now, there has been no youth
action plan where the expression “young people” was uniformly defined. All the laws dealing
with this issue, both at national and regional levels, have different concepts of what “young
people” are. Each of these laws considers different age ranges to identify the target,
depending on the issue dealt with. Some define young people as persons between the ages
of 15 and 29, others define them as being between 15 and 36, etc. The consequence is that,
usually, youth work is considered to be the work carried out by young people of different
ages, studying or not, young people who, for the first time, are approaching the labour
market, and policies in favour of youth work are all initiatives to provide instruments
necessary to cope with new job opportunities and with fast changes.
In Italy there is now a Ministry for Youth Policies and Sport, as in other European countries,
and the goal of this ministry is to provide national youth policies through the Youth National
Plan. A special economical fund has been instituted (Law n. 248, August 2006) to implement
the actions of the National Youth Plan: the “Fund for Youth Policies”. It was created with the
aim of promoting the rights of young people to cultural and vocational training, to foster their
inclusion in social activities, and to implement actions needed to increase their opportunities
of becoming house owners and getting credit to buy the goods and services they need. The
budget is € 130 million for 2007; this money will be administrated the country´s regional and
local authorities.
Another important aspect to underline is the increasing attention paid by the national
government to the provision of education and continuous training for young people.
Over the last ten years, many projects have been realised with the participation of local
administrations, local health organizations and the third sector. These projects have dealt
with prevention, social assistance, and health promotion. Local authorities manage youth
policies through Local Social Plans (Piani Sociali di Zona) involving the promotion of cultural
and civic sense promotion, the development of autonomy and independence, and the
prevention of social isolation and disease. Over these years, a great panorama of projects
and interventions has been promoted. These projects stress cultural exchange, a new
approach to the needs and expectations of young people. Most local authorities communes
are now in charge of youth policy, indicating that there is an institutional will to take care of
37