This research project is part of the connection between the system of social welfare services for the protection of minors, which in Europe is called Child and Family Welfare (CFW), and the juvenile justice system. In Italy, the Tribunale per i Minorenni, in the future 'Tribunale unico per le persone, i minorenni e le famiglie', deals with both the protection of minors and juvenile offenders. Due to the composition of the different services and professionals present in the juvenile justice system and the strong component of children of foreign origin involved, in this context the relationships between operators and users are characterized by a high degree of diversity and plurality. It is therefore evident that legal professionals, in their daily work, must learn to manage the encounter with otherness characterized by a strong component of diversity in biographical, cultural and linguistic terms. 

It is therefore evident the need to make use of specific competences to manage diversity and plurality in the interactions and relationships proper to the juvenile justice system, starting from the awareness that the cultural and normative pluralism that characterizes the life of the child is an unavoidable fact for the legal professional (Mancini, 2019). These competences can be identified in the construct of intercultural competence, as also suggested in the report "The child welfare challenge- policy, practice and research" (Pecora et al., 2009), which includes intercultural competence among the five principles identified to guide interventions in the field of CFW. According to Deardorff, intercultural competence can be defined as "appropriate and effective communication and behaviour in intercultural situations" (Deardorff, 2009, p. XI), while the Council of Europe identifies attitudes, knowledge, understanding, skills and actions as building blocks of intercultural competence (Council of Europe, 2014; 2018).

Therefore, the focus of this study is on the intercultural competence (CIs) used by juvenile law professionals (judge, honorary judge, lawyer, magistrate, juvenile carer, etc.) to manage interactions with young people of different cultural backgrounds. The research's focus is on the aspect of everyday practices since working environments are seen as a special setting that can foster skill development and maturation (experiential learning). As a result, the research examines the forms of in-practice intercultural skills, with a particular focus on contexts supporting the development of these competences. From the analysis of the intercultural competences that emerged from the research, it is planned to construct a professional profile of the intercultural juvenile law practitioner/professional based on models of the Regional Frameworks of Professional Standards. This profile can be used to define what competences may be useful for juvenile law practitioners in increasingly multicultural contexts, but also to build specialized training courses.

The structure of the research methodology is qualitative and involves the use of different tools, one of which is quantitative: semi-structured interviews, questionnaire and focus groups. The research fits into the strand of pedagogical research in that the research design and the researcher's outlook belong to these paradigms. Furthermore, it is an intercultural research as it does not intend to pit immigrants and natives against each other but to address problems related to situations in which cultural differences are at the forefront (Mantovani, 2008). The main epistemological paradigms within which the research is developed are intercultural education (Cohen-Emerique, Bennett, Council of Europe) and intercultural competence (Deardorff, Fantini, Portera), and the child rights paradigm (Convention on the Rights of the Child-CRC-). Furthermore, by focusing on the relational dimension and the interaction between subjects in a systemic framework in which individuals and society influence each other, another theoretical framework is identified in symbolic interactionism (Mead, Blumer and Goffman).

The methodology of this research is oriented towards the principles of naturalist research in which the researcher enters into the 'natural' context in which people elaborate their representations (Guba, Lincoln, 1985) and becomes himself an instrument of exploration and knowledge (Sorzio, 2015). In this type of research, the research design is flexible, becoming clearer and more refined as the research becomes more concrete, and the use of qualitative methods is favored. Starting from the initial research questions, a qualitative research design was defined in which a quantitative tool (the questionnaire) was incorporated in order to foster multiple perspectives and interpretations to support the overall study. Following a bottom-up logic, in line with the pragmatic approach that leaves the researcher free to identify the ideal mix of methods to answer specific research questions (Amaturo & Punziano, 2016), the choice of instruments was defined from the research questions. Specifically: - semi-structured interviews as a knowledge tool to explore individual professional practice and investigate the internal world of the subjects, made up of thoughts, experiences and attributions of meaning (Sità, 2012). The questions to be answered through the interviews concern practical knowledge, in particular how intercultural competence is acted out within work practices. Consistent with the strong link to the practical dimension and experiential learning, we chose to orient the interview outline on Vermersch's explanatory interview model (Vermersch, 2005). - a questionnaire addressed to all types of juvenile justice operators (lawyers, judges, honorary judges, magistrates, CTUs -executive technical consultants- USSM operators -Social Service Office for minors- ...) in order to broaden the view and include all types of professionals who interface and relate with difference in the various contexts of the Juvenile Court. Through the questionnaire, composed of closed and open-ended questions, the aim was to gather information on the most commonly used intercultural competences of juvenile law practitioners, starting from the European model of intercultural competences (Council of Europe, 2013, 2018), and on the training courses supporting the development of these competences. - a focus group with the aim of analyzing, together with legal professionals, the competences identified by the research and the professional profile of the intercultural professional in the Juvenile Justice System.

Given the foregoing, the purpose of this research is to produce insightful comments on how to handle cultural differences in encounters between juvenile law professionals and children from other countries or children who have experienced migration. The findings will be able to serve as a starting point to identify strategies and tools useful in managing intercultural relations in the various contexts of the juvenile justice system. This is in keeping with the vocation of educational research to respond to issues relevant to human life and to guide practice by producing knowledge that allows for solutions to the problems (Mortari, 2012). The results will also be useful for documenting practices that are in danger of being lost as a result of the new reform of the juvenile justice system (Delegated Act 206/2021), which envisages the use of the monocratic judge in many of the areas in which a multidisciplinary team has operated up to now. The intercultural nature of this research underlines the importance of addressing not only the population of foreign origin, but of reinterpreting and rethinking their working practices, starting from the challenges posed by cultural diversity, in order to generate processes of change and global transformations of these practices. In addition, starting from the profile, it will be possible to design training aids to support the development of the CIs of all legal practitioners, thus aiming at a specialization of the entire system, in line with the requirements of the Superior Council of the Magistracy. Finally, a better use of resources can be considered as a possible result, both in terms of the ability to plan interventions that also take into account the diversity, and in terms of developing skills to better support the process of listening to the child as per national regulations and CRC.

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