4.2.4. Lack of Social and Emotional Support in Non-Mentored Youths

Previous studies that have focused on young people in care and leaving care have emphasised that the professionals that work alongside them are usually seen by the youths as representatives of a formal and instrumentalised world. Specifically, they see them as people who do their job, focusing on the solution of specific problems [78]. Furthermore, in the Spanish context, it has been highlighted that there are few resources or services that accompany the young migrants in attending to the emotional distress that settlement may cause [9]. In this regard, the non-mentored youths in this study emphasised being able to talk about some of their emotional discomfort with the youth worker of their flat. However, these conversations were limited to formal spaces and specific tutoring sessions in which the youths were summoned at a specific time of the week to talk about various aspects of their work plan during their stay in the flat of the transition to adulthood programme. Arturo explained the following to us when we asked him about his concerns and whether he talked about them with somebody close to him:

*I don't usually talk about my problems, but one person like that* . . . *is Neus (youth worker). I sometimes have tutoring and we talk about how we are and stuff, and some discomfort comes out and we talk about it.* (Arturo, non-mentored youth)

This contrasts with the role that a mentor can play in the life of a young person, since the former takes time to be present in the life of the latter without being restricted to a specific time and space during the week, being seen as a result as someone from a more informal world [79]. The academic literature has highlighted that the informal nature of the mentoring relationships facilitates the appearance of emotional support or advice support because it allows them to arise in the context of a normal everyday conversation [71]. That is probably why it was difficult to identify the perceived social support of the non-mentored youths, who were explicit and even mentioned that sometimes it was difficult to find the support they needed:
