Juvenile justice residential communities and foster care for young offenders: Social representations and thinking about adolescents and educators groups

The educators' work in juvenile justice residential communities and their capacity of affective attunement to the adolescent's needs is essential for the creation of a protective and enriching context for the adolescent and his life trajectories. This article aims to explore the social representations of educators and young people in residential communities in Italy, through the analysis of their discourses gathered during focus groups. Our results reveal the need to compare these representations and work to narrow the gap between the caregivers and the users, in order to improve the relationship between the different protagonists of the interaction and, consequently, the possibilities of good success of interventions. (C) 2018 Societe Franyaise de Psychologie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.