Unaccompanied minors in Sicily: promoting conceptualizations of child well-being through children’s own subjective realities

Abstract

Understanding unaccompanied minors’ (UAMs’) individual migration journeys and aspirations and hopes helps make sense of the meaning they ascribe to their personal and social reality in their quest for integration and mobility. Although the well-being of children is considered to be of the utmost importance in contemporary times, we still lack good evidence of what children themselves regard as key facets of this, from their own life experiences. Identifying different domains and dimensions of children’s well-being and touching upon its multifaceted nature, this study presents an alternative framework, showing how the quality of the reception path is fundamental to having successful results throughout the entire integration process. By drawing upon data from in-depth qualitative interviews and focus groups with 50 UAMs in Sicily, this chapter helps plug an important gap in the literature in the context of child well-being as related to this group of children.