Local Politics – Programmes and Best Practice Models

Existential Field 4: Family Living Environment

Keywords: local family policies, good practice, European Alliance for the Family, family mainstreaming.

The report on Local Politics – Programmes and Best Practice Models has been written by Francesco Belletti & Lorenza Rebuzzini at Forum delle Associazioni Familiari in Italy.

Abstract: The second part of this existential field centres on local family policies across Europe. The local level, in family policies as well as in other policies, is acquiring more and more relevance in programming policies and projecting interventions. In spite of this, there is no systematic research on local family policies, and quantitative research results are not of much relevance. Indeed, a lot of good practices can be found, and so the qualitative research seems to be more productive regarding local policies. From our analysis, we detected some macro-areas of good practices for local family policies (e.g. financial support, leave arrangements, childcare, labeling and audit schemes, family-friendly workplaces, parenting support, active ageing) and some good practices that could be mainstreamed.

We focussed in particular on some characteristics: on whether local family policy is explicit and coherent, the level at which decision-making and budgeting takes place, and which good practices are structured in such a way as to permit their dissemination. As a conclusion, we suggest that a research agenda on local family policies would be of great interest, developing methodologies and instruments for comparison and evaluation and building a sort of family mainstreaming in local family policies.

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