Vita e Pensiero

This paper describes a project of listening and conflict mediation developed jointly by two healthcare companies in Bologna. The start of this new activity was driven by the assumption “take care of those who have to take care”. Quality of care relationship is closely related to organizational climate: better workplace relationship produce better care for citizens and greater satisfaction for professionals. A group of internal professionals, called “Consiglieri di Fiducia”, was chosen by companies and trained to listen and manage workplace conflicts. Conflict mediation, in accordance with the relational-symbolic paradigm, is an essential tool of their work. The paper evaluate the first year of this experience and the encouraging outcomes of the 25 cases examined by the Consiglieri in this period.

This paper explanes the relationship between using ICT in healthcare and the empowerment of the citizens, with a particular attention to the case of Lombardia, which from a lot of time is increasing the use of ICT in health. This paper considers in particular the Electronic Health Record, very important component of the healthcare system in Lombardia. The use of the EHR is coherent with the perspective of improving the participation of the citizen in caring personal wellbeing, through the increasing of personal empowerment in the professional logic, in the consumer logic and in the community logic. However, there are still some difficulties in the dissemination of the use of ICT in health, particularly difficulties like the technological and cultural digital divide, which are discussed in the paper.

This paper takes into exam young people’s condition, by comparing the results of the main sociological surveys carried out in 2012 in Italy and Europe. We decided to base this analysis on Millennials – those who are born approximately between 1982 and 2003 – because at the present their generation is at the centre of the political and sociological agenda and because the consequences of the economic and financial crisis make young people much more vulnerable and hinders them from planning their life.

This paper deals with the concept of social partnership from a sociological point of view, paying a particular attention on its possible applications in different social contexts. The author gives some definitions of social partnership, which is a polysemous and ambiguous term, closely linked to its birthplace and its context of application. After this brief introduction, the focus is put on the function of third sector, with its flexibility and closeness to the community needs. Third sector organisations have an important role in the creation of partnerships, they work with public and private actors in order to realize shared, multi-dimensional, well-organized and holistic projects. These interventions are addressed to specific social contexts and environments. Social partnerships need to develop a relational culture based on sharing, trust and reciprocity; they permit to realize something unique that a single actor could never reach alone. The author shows some experiences of partnership carried out in european and international realities. The necessity of cooperation crossing the borders becomes stronger and stronger. As a result, the level of social capital raises and several examples of good practises emerge; the aim is the production of experiences marked by originality, innovation and creativity.

This paper shows the constitution of the Integrated Family Policies Plan (Pi.Pol.Fam) introduced in the municipality of Castelnuovo del Garda. It points out the demographic and urban changes related with the need to maintain (or re-create) social cohesion and democratic participation. In this attempt, family plays a principal role as a target of policies and as social actor in the building of practices, activities and policies. The focus of our analysis is the term of ‘integrated’ that leads at the concept of subsidiarity. Analyzing it we note a double meanings: the first one refers to the organization within the municipal administration. The second one refers to the civil society involvement in the plan. Two axes take root in a ideological and political orientation (latency) that characterize the biography of many council members. They, in fact, worked on a project (called Progetto Genitori) whose aim was to connect school and family; teachers and parents. In this project we can recognize the basic features of the Integrated Family Policies Plan.

This paper presents a research about the project Caregiver Liguria realized by the Social District Genova IV for people who have relatives suffering from Alzheimer’s. This project was studied through the perspective of the best practices. The project Caregiver Liguria had two goals: first to train caregivers’ trainers and second to activate a series of initiatives, those are designed to ease the caregiver’s plight of strain and stress. This second goal was achieved through the creation and/or implementation of the network (formal and informal), through the enhancement of the proximity: this is an example of application of the horizontal subsidiarity. Forthermore, this project enhanced the relationships as a methodology of social work, as a goal, as tool. Finally, this project generated in the community a new association (AFMA), that works with social services for planning and managing projects in the community.

This study is aimed to explore the role of local social services in a particular form of open adoption called ‘adozione mite’. Psychologist, judges, social workers, adoptive parents and adopted children have taken part in focus group discussions. Results of qualitative analysis highlight that local services system represents a strong limit for this type of adoption; according stakeholders this is certainly an aspect to improve for a good functioning of adoption. These data are discussed in the light of the role of welfare community to support families and to facilitate integration between public and private social services.