During the 2014 and the 2015 the Mediterranean Sea continued to be the theater of a huge migratory flow. Only in these two years, more than 320,000 persons, especially from Nigeria, Gambia, Senegal, Mali and Bangladesh, left their countries for a long travel with the hope of finding a place where they could live with dignity. Once they arrive on the Italian coasts of Sicily, Calabria, and Sardinia, immigrants are distributed throughout the different regions of Italy where they are hosted in centers for refugees' reception. In these centers they can stay until their request as political refugee is accepted. From November 2015 until April 2016, the first author worked in the refugee center of Conetta, a small village in the area of Venice in the north east of Italy. Established at the end of July 2016, the center is one of the biggest of the country and hosts more than 500 men hailing from the sub-Saharan countries of Africa, and the Asian countries of Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Starting from this experience the authors explain the different practices of the job as social worker in a reception center and identify the needed competences to carry out this work. [For the full proceedings, see ED581791.]