28

In situations of distress involving children in danger, parental centers are spaces that welcome, shelter, and support children and their parents, from the prenatal period onward. This system for early prevention, launched in 2004 by Aire de famille, provides intensive support to the father-mother-infant triad, offering help both with conjugality and parenthood. It draws on the young parents’ desire to assume jointly the education and protection of the child while avoiding any repetition of the neglect, early separation, and ill-treatment that they themselves suffered. A parental center is therefore an inclusive and protective institutional space that is very favorable to the children’s psycho-affective development and personal equilibrium.