Childhood First: Responding to poverty and disadvantage in the early years

Objectives: The presentation is based on the project called "Transatlantic Forum on Inclusive Early Years". It is coordinated by King Baudouin Foundation in co-operation with European and Northern American Foundations. In... [ view full abstract ]

Objectives: The presentation is based on the project called "Transatlantic Forum on Inclusive Early Years". It is coordinated by King Baudouin Foundation in co-operation with European and Northern American Foundations. In Italy several foundations are involved, coordinated by Compagnia di San Paolo (Turin). The project is rooted in the idea that the poverty that affects children has long-term effects and inadequate investments can negatively affect their growth. Research has shown that returns on investment in early childhood education are higher for children from low socio-economic background, while returns on educational investment at later stages are higher for children from high socio-economic background. In comparison to Europe, Italy has a critical position in terms of exposure to the risk of poverty for children and families. Eurostat data tell us that in 2014 29.9% of Italian children ages less than 6 were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, against 25.8% on average in the EU-27. For this reason the aim of the project was to increase awareness that investing in early childhood and specifically in children of low-income and migrant families should be at the top of the agenda of Italian policy makers. After the end of the three-year project, each country is developing national strategies for creating innovative services targeted at children of low-income and migrant families. One of the actions implemented was a survey involving social workers operating in children and family services.

Method: The survey collected information about children at risk of poverty and social exclusion, their needs and interventions provided, in order to understand how to strengthen services and improve the living conditions of children. The survey investigated three main aspects of the helping process: admission to services, needs of children and families and interventions provided.

Results: The data collected through 258 questionnaires refer to a population of more than 10 thousand children in the age group 0-6 living with families supported by social services in the year 2013. As regards to the interventions provided, economic support represents the prevailing intervention. Sometimes it is integrated with other interventions. Furthermore, it emerges the double direction of the services provided: on the one hand aimed at children, such as educational home service, on the other aimed at parents, for example job counseling. But how useful is the support provided by social services? It emerged the importance of direct interventions provided to children and indirect services to support and integrate parenting skills. For each intervention, social workers defined the usefulness for children and family. For example, only 22% of social workers consider cash transfers “very useful” for children while 39% consider them “very useful” for the family. The majority of social workers consider “very useful” the admission of children to early childhood services; and for 54% this is useful also for the family. Social workers consider more useful the professional intervention instead of cash transfers without a specific goal.

Conclusions: The analysis underlines the importance of child poverty but at the same time it shows that it is not considered as a specific issue even if it can cause very serious damages. There are reports, publications and declarations that highlight this vacuum of interest. The attention to these issues is still not adequate as it should. The initiative “Childhood, First” promoted by a group of Italian foundations represents an example of interventions against childhood poverty because it aims to experiment innovative services for supporting children from low-income and immigrant families. The survey among social workers, in its quantitative and qualitative results, confirms the need to reduce cash transfers and to increase the provision of services based on a professional analysis.