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Court Experts Recommend Conditional Return of ‘Forest Family’ Children

A final psychiatric report gives judges a technical basis to decide within a month whether the three children can reunite with their parents under safeguards for their wellbeing.

Overview

  • The court-appointed CTU filed its final perizia on June 8, saying the three children should return home as soon as conditions compatible with their wellbeing are in place.
  • The report documents that the children arrived at the casa famiglia with clear hygiene problems, gaps in basic schooling and signs of neuropsychological immaturity.
  • While in the Vasto care facility the children began schooling, improved in reading, writing and arithmetic, and kept regular emotional contact with their mother and visits with their father.
  • Family consultants Tonino Cantelmi and Martina Aiello formally contested the CTU’s methods, arguing there was insufficient direct observation and other methodological flaws that judges must weigh.
  • Judges at the Juvenile Court of L'Aquila now have one month to rule on restoring parental responsibility, a decision that will depend on the CTU’s conditions, the disputed expert critiques and the municipality’s progress on housing for the parents.