RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

Emerging networks of welfare society among public, private and third sector

University Co-ordinator

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - SOCIOLOGIA - MILANO(MI)

Research Unit Leader

Giovanna ROSSI

Description

Following the new legal organisation implemented by the law 328 of year 2000, new forms of policies have been introduced as a response to the family needs. Such policies are not homogeneous over the whole national territory.
It is very interesting, from a scientific viewpoint, to analyse the first real attempts of experimenting a virtuous partnership between different social subjects, especially while the whole system is moving towards a societal welfare model.
Our research group focuses on policies specifically designed for the family in normal-not critical conditions, with a clear promotional aim: the family is treated as an active and fundamental subject rather than as a simple recipient in the service provision process. In order to apply a methodology based on the social networks empowerment, it is the family rather than the individuals to be considered as the policy recipient: this is an unavoidable pre-requisite for a relational intervention.
Our research will be rooted on a principle of “excellence”: good practices will be isolated according to a model that highlights the discontinuities and innovations of such practices compared to an institutional welfare model. The concept of good practice will then be related to that of social capital, under the hypothesis that there is a positive relation between the two.
The primary hypothesis is that an overall societal well-being and a social capital generation can be achieved through specific types of partnerships between subjects different both in terms of their nature and of their behaviour patterns: they have to aim at setting a service, or a services network, related to complex social needs and characterised by a relational methodology.
The different compositions of the social subjects involved in the process leads to different intervention models: a comparative study of such interventions will allow for a qualitative evaluation of the performance outcomes and for the identification of the best practices.


Welfare services for the family as relational services.
Welfare services for the family are relational services, that is they require the collaborative effort of the provider and the recipient of the service, under a sharing perspective. In the organisations the collaboration between the provider and the client sets a new dynamic space that can evolve over time. In this way the intervention, centred on the relation between provider and recipient, allows for a feedback mechanism that adjusts the action on the specific needs of each individual. Services are therefore necessarily customised because the family as “user” is involved actively and directly as much as possible.

The providers
At this time, social services for the family are provided by public subjects, the market, the third sector and the families themselves organised in networks. Each subject has specific resources, goals and cultures. From the interrelation of these four elements emerges the intervention itself that each actor implements in its own way, finding its particular balance between the resources available, the goals that it is pursuing, and the rules and values that inform its actions.

Necessity of a network paradigm
The complexity of this scenario, characterised by a social players pluralisation and by a interventions diversification, can be adequately understood through the network paradigm: this paradigm allows to observe the existing relations among the four polarities that constitute the social system (State, market, third sector and informal networks) and what comes out of them (the in-person services).
The network paradigm is able to ‘see’ the interdependence relations existing among the different social players on an horizontal and partnership level. In fact, a network is not a hierarchy as no level is more fundamental than the others: all the parts are considered to be at the same level, each of them is endowed with the same power in the interaction and is (regarded as) a unit able to act autonomously.
This paradigm clearly refers to the horizontal principle of subsidiarity and claims a full citizenship for all the social players (State, market, third sector and informal networks). Under this viewpoint, each network is constituted by the agents’ relations as a whole. The network paradigm shows not only and not primarily that the individuals are placed in a context made of relations - that is they have links among them -, but also that there is a connection of these links one another: all the relations among the points of the network, the nearest ones (direct relations) as well as the farthest (indirect relations), are influenced by what happens within the relations among two specific points.
The observation of the networks that provide in-person family services, allows to identify the circuit of the different phases of the process. However, there is little social conscience of these intertwining relational dynamic; as a consequence its potentials are not always enough exploited.

Goal of the research unit
The research aims to shed light on the networks of relations involved in the assistance process, by carrying out some case studies concerning good practices of partnership among public, private and third sector agencies in the realisation of specific intervention. The underlying rationale is that a global increase of social capital can be documented as a result of the networking process.
Secondarily, the research intends to define more precisely what a ‘good practices’ is, especially with regards to the in-person services.

Thus, to be more precise the research goals can be expressed as follow:

GENERAL GOAL
The wider goal of the research is to observe the networks (partnerships) of public, private, third sector and informal agencies aimed to the provision of family services, in order to discover how the good practices and the social capital generate and whether and how the two processes are synergetic.

Form this viewpoint, in the first instance, it must be said that the network study implies a relational methodology: an observer, as a third part, observes the reciprocal behaviours of the inter-related subjects, their relations and the emerging effect of these relations.
In other words, considering and analysing all the network’s subjects without reference to their relations is not enough; tracking instruments able to ‘see’ relations (i.e. the network analysis) are needed.

In the second instance, it is fundamental the excellence to emerge through an inductive process: the research approach should observe what is ‘good’ in practice rather than evaluate the cases a priori , referring to a set of ideal parameters of a benchmark theoretical model. That means to focus what a good outcome in the family services is, by involving in a relational way all the stakeholders in the definition of the meaning and value of the realised intervention.

Thirdly, the social capital dimensions (trust, reciprocity, cooperative culture) have to be referred to some complex networks, where subjects carry their own specific action codes and give different meanings to the network get-together.

SPECIFIC GOAL
The observation of the networks (partnerships) of public, private, third sector and informal agencies, aimed to the provision of family services, and the analysis of the social capital generation process, will be carried out through the realisation of case studies identified among some experiences qualified as ‘good practices’.

Under this perspective, a particular attention will be paid to the planning modalities of the intervention: in fact, a relational planning style must consider the relation as the key instrument in defining and implementing the best solutions to the needs and problems. From the relational viewpoint, the planning phase is a complex one and must involve a certain number of stakeholders interested in the project elaboration. The boundary between project and intervention is very flexible: on the one hand, the project is action from the beginning, on the other, the action is, still more, placed in a planning process, as, for every step achieved, a verification of the attained results and of their possible unpredictable effects, as well as a new definition of the next aims are required. Decisions must continuously be revised. Similarly, the evaluation is a process that lasts all the intervention long. In this case, more than considering the balance between used resources and achieved results, a careful analysis about the intervention impact on the community has to be carried out. The impact must be evaluated in terms of outcome and effectiveness and all the involved dimensions have to be considered both under objective and subjective parameters, so to measure the real closeness of the case to the relational model of intervention.

The observation and comparison of different planning modalities constitutes the first step in order to individuate the good practices: in this way the experiences are evaluated both in terms of content and methodology innovations.
However, besides the methodological level, the positive outcome of the ‘good practice’ must be referred also to the pluralization of the care systems solutions, to the adoption of an auto-reflecting model for the service evaluation, to the family skills empowerment and development and, finally, to the focus on the family transition.
Other specific social capital indicators must be set with refer to the presence of trustful interpersonal relations, of reciprocity relational dynamics and of a cooperative style in the service provision and among the network partners. All the network level could be observed: from the provider-client relation to the relation between the network itself and the institutions.

PHASES OF THE RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY

PHASE I
Realisation of a secondary analysis of national and international studies regarding the in-person services quality and the best practices, in order to elaborate a model aimed to select the experiences to be included within the group of case studies.
Methodology:
Bibliography research and analysis

PHASE II
In this step a methodological instrument will be realised to be used for a first screening of the experiences.
Methodology:
Realisation of a preliminary quantitative and qualitative set of measurement indicators to be used in order to select the case studies to be considered in the research. It will identify:
- the typology of the subjects involved in the intervention realisation
- the network diversification, with reference to the presence of institutional, private and third sector players
- the typology and level of formalisation of the agreements established by the different subjects
- the purpose of the partnership, with regard to the service realisation
- the achieved results, with particular reference to the family service recipients
- specific quality indicators, individuated following to the results of the phase I.

PHASE III
This phase will isolate a number of cases potentially matching with the characteristics pointed out in the previous phases; ad hoc informative channels will be activated. Besides, four cases will be chosen that match with the elaborated model; they will be studied through the set of qualitative and quantitative measurement indicators of the phase II.
Methodology:
Application of the set of qualitative and quantitative measurement indicators.

PHASE IV
In the last phase the four selected cases will be studied with the aim of analysing the elements that characterise them as ‘good practice’ and of individuating the social capital dimensions present in them.
Methodology:
- Documents analysis for each case study
- Realisation of 40 in depth interviews to preferential witnesses belonging to different formal and informal contexts that participate to the networks
- Realisations of focus groups and of the initial warming up
- Administration of individual forms to the provider’s agents and clients involved in the service process
- Content analysis of the collected materials.

From the whole research plan the following result is expected to be achieved: to understand and be able to observe the formal and informal relations, in such a way to individuate, under a partnership perspective, which kind of social bonds makes easier and fosters the realisation of good practices, that is practices effective and tuned on the familiar codes in answering the family needs.