Interventi comunitari strengths-based per promuovere l’inclusione per il benessere: alla (ri)scoperta delle risorse individuali e collettive

Resumen

In light of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development (UN, 2015), all citizens are called to give their contribution to address the arduous socio-economic, environmental and cultural challenges that characterise the 21st Century. One of the transversal strategies identified to achieve the set goals is promoting full participation of all institutions, public and private, as well as citizens to bring about sustainable change. Within this perspective, the planning of actions that aim to involve the entire community becomes one of a wider spectrum of strategies aimed at producing wellbeing and improving people’s perceptions regarding their quality of life. This emancipatory perspective calls for wider bottom-up inclusive action that envisages the participation of the whole school community by rediscovering individual and collective resources. Thus, it is not about building bridges, but pulling down walls, opening doors, broadening the concept of school community to embrace and acknowledge the role of society at large in bringing about transformation.  As literature suggests, strengths-based theoretical reflections (Antonovsky 1996; Dockrill Garrett, 2022; Sen, 1993; Seligman et al., 2009) and intervention models (McKnight & Kretzmann, 1993; Pulla et al., 2012; Russell & McKnight, 2022) have proven to be particularly effective to orient such initiatives. This contribution, therefore, aims to highlight how inclusive strengths-based approaches, albeit stemming from different research fields, may well find their common ground in the vision of the 2030 Agenda (UN, 2015), which is that of promoting wellbeing. 

 Keywords: asset-based community development, inclusion, strengths-based approaches, wellbeing, quality of life