The Interplay between Child Educational Poverty and Family Relationships: An Italian Project Based on the Family Impact Lens

Abstract

Educational poverty concerns children’s access to educational resources. Families are recognized as crucial subjects for accessing to them. Hence, to contrast educational poverty, family-based interventions are advisable. This article describes the first Italian project adopting the ‘Family Impact Lens’, a family-focused approach to policy and practice. It was applied as a model for the monitoring and the impact evaluation of the project ‘Open Doors’, aimed to contrast educational poverty in an Italian marginal neighbourhood. A theory-based participatory methodology was deployed: both monitoring and evaluation were intended as accompanying processes of the project, leading the operators first to share the theoretical model and subsequently to assess their ability to apply it in their work. The Italian project intended to strengthen family and social educational relationships of children by acting on the 5 guiding criteria of the Family Impact Lens. This article reports the path carried out during the first year, consisted of a survey on 140 families, a questionnaire addressed to 42 educators, and 4 metaplans including all the different typologies of operators involved in the project. Results point out some first operational guidelines for improving the adherence to the Family Impact Lens in the next two years of the project.