Case Background
International adoptions have often hit the news in the past because of striking cases of abuse, child trafficking and celebrity ‘baby shopping’. What does not hit the news so often is the existence of international legislation, carefully laid down in the interests of the child, ratified by over seventy of the world’s nations, including Italy. As you might imagine the adoption of a child from another country, and more precisely another culture, is no easy undertaking and to maximise the success of the adoption many different experts from different public administrations (juvenile courts, social services, health service providers etc.) are involved in assisting couples wishing to adopt and the subsequent integration of the child in his or her new context.

Finconcept.net carried out an independent study into the extent to which Italy applied this legislation and the methods being used to satisfy the appropriate norms. This study was the basis for the development of an organisational model,   ®, presented to the Italian Ministry of Justice in June 2003. The result was the validation of the model and a memorandum of understanding between Finconcept.net and the Ministry for the dissemination of the model in Italy. The first application of this model was in the Italian region of Sicily.