Social services cooperating with schools to enable community: the case of two territories of Southern Italy

The Program of Intervention for Prevention of Institutionalization (P.I.P.P.I.) is a programme that integrates research, training, and intervention in working with families living in vulnerable situations. It is funded by the Italian Ministry of Welfare and, since 2011, has cumulatively involved roughly 8000 professionals from Social and Health Services and Schools, as well as 4000 children and their families in more than 200 territories across Italy. P.I.P.P.I. focuses on supporting children and families through multiprofessional, holistic, and resilience-based interventions, in order to reduce child neglect. Bronfenbrenner’s ecology of human development and its definition of neglect are the rationale for the programme, and discussing the theories on community and community capacity linked with resilience theory, this paper reflects on enabling community as an approach to alleviating social disadvantage and promoting child, family, and community wellbeing and resilience. The cases of two territories in Southern Italy will be presented and reviewed in order to illustrate how the service-school-family relationship was promoted within a resilience community approach. Using information from meetings, focus-groups with professionals, and document reviews, programme implementation will be presented and discussed to explore how the governance of social services and school-based service providers make decisions and organize activities to facilitate participation by children, parents, teachers, and social professionals, enabling more community development. Implications for practice, policy and research are highlighted.