Stefania Meda

The present study represents a qualitative in-depth research, aiming at pointing out and analyzing, in the light of a more specific theory of social capital, relational good practices of family-based and community-oriented intervention for the rehabilitation and the reintegration of street children in Nairobi, Kenya. Aim of the study will be to explore the existing culture of the care for the street children and re-think it as a multidimensional and complex process that rests upon family and community relations and promotes innovative strategies, able to take into consideration the specific needs of the families and the local communities, and providing a relational answer to such needs. The research rests on a major theoretical framework called «relational sociology», which allows a deeper understanding of the street children phenomenon as a family and community-related issue, whereby macro and meso causal factors have an impact on the micro level of the family, contributing to the raise of the phenomenon itself. Accordingly, in terms of recommendations for social measures, the street children issue can be addressed and tackled only by a family-based and community-oriented approach. The present study, at an empirical level, highlights significant experiences of family-based and community-oriented care for the rehabilitation and the reintegration of street children in Nairobi. The approach hereby employed is that of the so-called «best practices», a research method aiming at drawing theoretical notions from the most effective interventions. A huge work of operationalization of social indicators for both the concept of social capital and good practice was done. From a methodological point of view, three case studies were conducted. They represent three significant examples of good practice in family-based intervention as they are highly innovative; careful of the relational dynamics of the care; addressed to the family as a unit; able to sustain the distinctive manner the family responds to the needs of its members (family empowerment); capable to produce solidarity instead of individualism (intergenerational equity); focused on the family within the local community (community empowerment); sustainable; reproducible; adopting social governance strategies (vertical and horizontal networking with institutional and civil society organizations).