Court orders school placement for the children of the 'family in the woods' in Vasto

Second grade for the 7-year-old twins, fourth grade for their older sister, two years older: these will be the classes attended, in a primary school in Vasto, by the three children of the 'family in the woods' starting next Wednesday. An entry into public school decided by the Juvenile Court of L'Aquila which ten months ago suspended Catherine and Nathan's parental responsibility, challenging them, among other things, their choice of parental education and placing their three children in a family home in Vasto. It is here, in what has been their residence since November 20, that the children were given lessons by a retired teacher.

As reported by the lawyer Simone Pillon, who has been following the Anglo-Australian couple in the matter since May, tomorrow the children should spend time in Palmoli, to see their animals again and enter for the first time the house granted free of charge by the Municipality while awaiting the renovation of the farmhouse in the countryside, whose poor healthiness was among the causes underlying the first provision of the Court.

School inclusion should take place with the monitoring of the Child Neuropsychiatry Department of the Lanciano Vasto Chieti Local Health Authority, whose doctors, in a July report, reiterated the clinical urgency of "recomposing" the family unit to avoid further damage to the children. According to the Court order, in the first days of school the three little brothers could spend a few hours with their parents in Palmoli, in the presence of an educator, and then return to the Vasto facility in the afternoon.

"It is the parents' intention to maintain and ask for maximum confidentiality regarding the children's commitments this week, to avoid adding stress to stress", announced today Pillon who on 10 September filed a complaint with the Court of Appeal against the Court's latest provision establishing 'reunification in stages'.

In 66 pages it underlines "the Court's omission of any assessment relating to the risks to children's health, due to the continuation of extra-family placement" and complains about the "unjustifiable compression of parents' right to freedom of education and upbringing", as well as "the difficult practical application of the provision" which would force children to spend at least two hours a day in the car between Vasto and Palmoli. The request is therefore for an immediate return to the family and the admission of the homeschooling educational project, in compliance with a right provided for by the Constitution. Meanwhile, for the stay of the three children in the 'family home' in Vasto, the small municipality of Palmoli continues to incur costs of around seven thousand euros per month.