Families’ and children’s participation in the P.I.P.P.I. programme. Lessons since best practice

Abstract

Users’ participation in Child and Family Social Work is widely acknowledged as a central and hard-to-reach issue for successful and effective intervention. The article considers the methodological
proposal of Participative and Transformative Evaluation (PTE).The PTE is realised inside the second implementation of the Programme of Intervention for Prevention of Institutionalization (P.I.P.P.I.), which involved 144 child care and protection cases (198 children) in nine Italian cities. The case selected for this article has been chosen because it reflects a best practice in using the PTE as well as the participation path and is undertaken following the indications of the Critical Best Practice. It allowed an in-depth understanding of the mother’s and professionals’ viewpoints about what built the success in their practice. During the discussion three components are considered: the technical solutions offered by research or science (technical components) become meaningful when participants not only apply them, but act upon them, building, internally, the meanings to be enacted (internal component). In the case study this came about through dialogue between people, and through negotiation and reflection on competence, visions and values (communicative component).