Il diritto al welfare di bambini e adolescenti

The text presents the development of social policies for childhood and adolescence in Italy and their transformations from the late 1990s to the present day. The 1990s marked a milestone in policies for children with the ratification of the 1989 UN convention that placed children's rights at the centre of the political debate. Following the ratification of the convention, the Italian government created the conditions to provide childhood and adolescence with exclusive support, with an action plan and a law that allocated funds exclusively to this age group. Problems emerged at the beginning of the 2000s with a series of laws that introduced federalism in the social sector. There is an important transition from national welfare to local welfare, which, hypothesised as a more immediate solution to social needs in the territories, has in reality generated inequalities that have repercussions on the lack of accessibility of children's rights.