“L’ospedale cresce con noi”. Luoghi di cura a misura di bambino nell’immaginario dei minori

Despite growing interest in the humanization of services, hospitals still suffer from partial marginality in pedagogical studies. After a theoretical introduction on the main themes related to the hospitalization of minors, this paper gives voice to children and adolescents as active and competent subjects able to propose answers to the questions that concern them and also useful suggestions for the adult world. This study is the result of the analysis of 3,560 contributions by minors, including papers, drawings and models, collected in the Piacenza area in the first quarter of the year 2014 as part of the project “L’ospedale cresce con noi” (the hospital grows with us), preparatory to the redesign of hospital spaces. These works were analyzed and presented according to phenomenological categories of lived space, lived body, lived time, care relationship, lived experience. The range covered subjectivity and emotions, narrating and narrating oneself in search of meaning. In line with the authentic desire and imagination expressed by the minors, interdisciplinary directions are outlined for the realization of a truly minor-friendly hospital, an educational context in which patients can experience disease as growth opportunity. A local project is therefore presented as a possible forerunner of new paths of meaning and existential enhancement inside and outside hospitals, with a view to a solid preventive culture for both children and adults.