Drawing from a qualitative research carried out on a sample of social workers of the City of Genova, the article deals with the case in which social services, in the frame of a change of their environment because of the increase of service users with foreign origin, have to set relations with citizens and consular authorities of countries, such as Ecuador, that can be considered as Transnational Nation-States, i.e. countries treating their emigrants as full-fledged citizens, granting them nation-ality, voting right and different forms of support, relying also on a wide diplomatic network. The author is set to outline the forms of development of the relations be-tween local government and its social services, on the one hand, and citizens and the consulate of Ecuador, on the other hand. While at first these relations were marked by conflict, they became then more cooperative, an example of "best practice" aiming to grant the immigrants an access to local welfare services in the receiving country.
Keywords: Political transnationalism; Ecuador; consular authorities; Genova; so-cial services; child protection.