Paper
Listening to children: a journey through their well being, problems and needs
- issue: Issue 1 / 2009
- authors: Roberto Maurizio, Giorgia Salvadori
- keywords: family, prevention, evaluation, Italy, disadvantages
- views: 4401
- downloaded: 1
- download pdf (64 Kb)
abstract
Background. The paper illustrates a study in 2006 on the needs of children in three towns in the surrounding area of Torino: Moncalieri, La Loggia, and Trofarello, with total inhabitants around 70,000. This study is currently being replicated in twenty-five other communities in the social service district of Chieri (TO).
The main research objectives were twofold: to study children in daily life and to look at the issues facing children receiving social and psychological public services.
The research is a part of a multi year program entitled "Community Participation Project" (Progetto di partecipazione comunitaria).
Purpose. The research started from two fundamental questions:
- What are children's perspectives of their needs and living conditions?
- What was the path that led some of the local children to become users of the social and psychological public services?
The study included qualitative and quantitative research: individual interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires.
In particular, the study of the children's perceptions on their well-being and problems was performed with questionnaires to a representative sample of around 1000 children aged 8-13; the study of treatment cases was performed with an evaluation tool for all of the active case files in 2005 from social services and psychological services.
There were twenty focus groups made up of teachers, parents of children from pre-school to middle school, pediatricians, social and medical workers, priests from local churches, associations, and cooperative employees working with children from the entire district area.
Main results. Through the qualitative research we were able to analyze the process of accessing social services for disadvantaged children, the nature of their problems and those of their families, the connection between the child's situation and the services provided, and ending treatment. Here we highlight the main results of the study; the complete analysis on the children in social and psychological services is available on Paideia's website: www.fondazionepaideia.it.
The first variable to emerge were social and economical problems for the families. This is a significant reason in determining the use of social services and it drastically affects the well being of children: in fact, more than half of children followed by services do not display any particular personal problems (psychological or social). In these cases social services usually provide interventions aimed at social-educational and psychological support for the child, in addition to financial aid for the family: these interventions can be an immediate response to an explicit need or a preventive measure for the family. In these cases it is very important to look at the effectiveness of the connection between the interventions.
The second variable to emerge were problems connected to instability of couples: more than 30% of children followed by social and psychological services have parents who are separated or divorced and the percentage rises to 35% if one parent households are included. Evidently the variable of separation and divorce cannot be considered the main cause of a critical situation but the collected data shows that it tends to increase the child's vulnerability. Another issue regarding the instability of couples is the high level of inter-family conflict: for children living in this environment the daily impact of inter-family conflict leads to educational, inter-personal or health problems.
The third variable to emerge were the issues connected to chronic cases (families who are supported by services for several years) and multi-problematic families (those with more than one family member receiving services).
The collected data shows that more than one-third of children are followed by social services for more than 4 years (the percentage of those in services for more than 7 years is 15%). In these cases it is critical to evaluate the impact of interventions overtime. Regarding the multi-problematic families, which make up around one quarter of the study sample, research shows that 6% of the mothers of children in services have mental health issues, while 6% of the fathers have problems of deviance (jail or prison time), drug or alcohol addiction. The data analysis revealed the presence of more than 200 people with disabilities (this could be any member of the family), of whom around 20 need full-time care.
The fourth variable to emerge was the high vulnerability of immigrant children: they have a higher percentage of cases in services when compared to Italian children of the same age group. Inter-personal and educational problems for immigrant children are some of the effects of their susceptibility to cultural exclusion.
Implications and recommendations. This study can be used as a periodic outlook tool (for example every 5 years) to evaluate changes in the population receiving social services and evaluate the political and social impact of the actions put into place by the public and private entities. In addition, the complied data will be used as part of the planning process for future social programs in the three subject areas (Piano di Zona 2008-2010).
Based on the research results, there are three projects on child welfare in the start up phase. The Paideia Foundation[1] is providing the financial and strategic support required for the three projects.
Key references
Maurizio R., Salvadori G., La città che ascolta i bambini - Moncalieri, Trofarello, La Loggia: desideri, paure e attese dell'infanzia, Fondazione Paideia, Torino 2007 (www.fondazionepaideia.it).
Contacts: Roberto Maurizio, Giorgia Salvadori, Fondazione Paideia, Via San Francesco d'Assisi 44, 10121 Torino - Italia, E-mail: maurizio2@maurizioroberto.191.it; giorgia.salvadori@fondazionepaideia.it
[1]. Paideia was founded in 1993 by a group of families in Turin to help disadvantaged children by promoting new initiatives and giving concrete support to those involved in this work. It is active in two main areas: "support area" - family support and recreational activities - and "promotion and development area" - grants to organizations dedicated to helping disadvantaged children and social research.