Residential care for minors has historically been a significant working environment for educators. Today, these “communities” face several difficul ties, such as a decline in the willingness to work in this type of facility and reduced social recognition for educators. Aware of the gap between the significance of communities and their social visibility, a process of “research”, “action”, “training” and “participation” has been undertaken with a number of residential facilities in the Parma, Piacenza and Reggio Emilia areas, focusing on two points: 1) the need for visibility – both for the communities in the area and for the university in the community network; 2) the questioning of practices within and between communities, in the relationship between them and the university, and within the university itself, with regard to the specific issue of training educators who work in such facilities. The Research-based Teacher Professional Development took the form of a series of actions, such as a study day organized at the University, the creation of a collective volume, and the inclusion in the curriculum of the L19 degree course at the University of Parma of a course dedicated to the theme of communities.
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