Social Work with Refugees and Migrants in Italy

Social Work in Italy has been tackling the internal migration phenomenon since the post-WW II period, when more than 1,300,000 Italian citizens from poor southern regions, where employment was scarce, moved to the center and to the industrialized north of Italy (Simone 2016). Since then, and as early as the late 1980s, social workers have had to deal with flows of migrants and refugees from other countries. Faced with the growing commitment of Social Work to the field of migration, the professional community has been called to reassess both the training of social workers and the updating of methodology and functions, especially with regard to the adaptation of professional work and ser- vic…