Challenges for the Evaluation of the P.I.P.P.I. - Programme of Intervention for Prevention of Institutionalisation: between Partecipative and Experimental Pathways

Evaluation is constantly requested by governments and decision-makers, to prove that social policies and actions undertaken are effective in responding to problems. Also programmes contrasting child neglect are involved in such request to guarantee that children enjoy their childhood and ensure access to quality service. This paper focuses on an Italian evaluation experience of one such programme named the P.I.P.P.I. (Programme of Intervention for Prevention of Institutionalisation), the outcome of a collaboration between the University of Padua and the Italian Ministry of Welfare. The paper questions and challenges the experimental designs normally used for these evaluation purposes, highlighting how knowledge of effective treatments is far from the practices delivered. The study proposes an innovative evaluation path in which the participative evaluation, where the professionals build their own knowledge through an evaluation in the field, coexists with the choice of matching as a (quasi) experimental evaluation, responding to the Government\u2019s request for effective investments

P.I.P.P.I.: What has changed? How and why? The empirical evidence

This paper provides a summary of the results of the P.I.P.P.I. Program in achieving the prefixed goals on the final, intermediate and proximal outcome variables, regarding children\u2019s development, the positive exercise of parental competences and the effective action of services respectively. Therefore, the main purpose is to describe the impact of the program on the overall well-being of children and families in relation to the processes implemented. This is possible thanks to the wealth of information gathered by professionals through the tools provided for the analysis, design and monitoring activities in the work with families

Challenges for the Evaluation of the P.I.P.P.I. - Programme of Intervention for Prevention of Institutionalisation: between Partecipative and Experimental Pathways

Evaluation is constantly requested by governments and decisionmakers, to prove that social policies and actions undertaken are effective in responding to problems. Also, programmes contrasting child neglect are involved in such request to guarantee that children enjoy their childhood and ensure access to quality service. This paper focuses on an Italian evaluation experience of such a programme, thanks to the collaboration between University of Padua and Italian Ministry of Welfare. It is called P.I.P.P.I. - Programme of Intervention for Prevention of Institutionalisation. The paper questioned and challenged the experimental designs normally used for these evaluation purposes, highlighting how knowledge of effective treatments is far from the practices delivered. The study purposes an innovative evaluation path, intertwining the participative evaluation where the professionals build their own knowledge through an evaluation in the field, with the choice of matching as (quasi) experimental evaluation, responding to the Government’s request of effective investments

I risultati di P.I.P.P.I. e il loro impatto nelle politiche regionali e locali

This paper provides a summary of the results of the P.I.P.P.I. program in 4 editions of the program (2013-2017) that was implemented in 109 local authorities with 1.812 children and their 1.537families.The analysis refers to the achievement of the prefixed goals on the final, intermediate and proximal outcome variables, regarding children’s development, the parental response to child’s needs and the action of services. The paper examines the information gathered by professionals through the tools provided for the analysis, design and monitoring activities in the work with families. With regards to the context where the program is implemented in, the case of the Region Lombardia is shown as an example of integrating the program in the regional governance.Questo articolo riporta una sintesi dei risultati del programma P.I.P.P.I. nelle 4 edizioni del programma che vanno dal 2013 al 2017 a cui hanno partecipato 109 AT lavorando con 1.812 bambini appartenenti a 1.537 nuclei familiari. L’analisi si riferisce al raggiungimento degli obiettivi prefissati rispetto alle variabili di esito finali, intermedie e prossimali, che riguardano lo sviluppo dei bambini, la risposta ai bisogni dei bambini da parte dei genitori e un’azione efficace dei servizi. Vengono prese in esame le informazioni raccolte dagli operatori attraverso gli strumenti offerti dal Programma nelle attività di analisi, progettazione e monitoraggio del lavoro con le famiglie. In riferimento ai contesti in cui si realizza il programma, si propone il caso della Lombardia come esempio di integrazione del programma nel proprio sistema di governance

Identification and estimation of the effects of school quality on achievement of italian students

The aim of this dissertation is to assess the causal effect of school quality on students' acquisition of skills during the academic year. I exploit information at individual and school level obtained by integrating the data from the second wave of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2003) with the administrative data on schools from the archive Sistema Integrato Segreterie Scolastiche Italiane (SISSI). The rich dataset allows to overcome the issue of non-random selection of students into schools of different quality. A general statistical procedure is used to allow for latent 'outcome' and 'treatment' variables –variation of skills and quality, respectively. The results confirm the main findings of literature, i.e. school quality, as measured by the usual observable characteristics of schools – like class size, does not matter once we control for individual endowment, family background and peer characteristics. Nevertheless, I provide evidence that schools have multiple dimensions of quality and there is some indication of an impact arising from teachers, whose effectiveness in promoting education seem to be explained by their type of job contract in terms of tenure

Impact evaluation of the P.I.P.P.I. programme: a first application of counterfactual analysis

The research focuses on the Italian Programme of Intervention for Prevention of Institutionalization (P.I.P.P.I.), the implementation of an integrated inter-professional, institutional and service method of intervention, at national level, with families at risk of child neglect. To prove the effectiveness of the programme with the (quasi) experimental evidence of Impact Evaluation, a set of non-participant families under the care of standard services are compared to participants of the 4th edition of the programme. Since a non-random selection process intervenes in the professionals\u2019 choice of the families to be included in the intervention, specific statistical techniques have been applied to minimize the selection bias resulting by comparing participants with non-participants. Even if environmental conditions are difficult to change, statistically significant effects on children\u2019s total risk of out-of-home placement and developmental needs satisfaction are estimated. Also, the effects on parents\u2019 response to child\u2019s needs are positive and, in general, professionals\u2019 support to parents becomes less important after they have participated in P.I.P.P.I

L\u2019implantation du programme P.I.P.P.I. (Programme d\u2019intervention pour pr\ue9venir l\u2019institutionnalisation de l\u2019enfant) en Italie : m\ue9thode d\u2019intervention et r\ue9sultats de recherche

Le programme P.I.P.P.I., promu par le Minist\ue8re du Politiques Sociales, vise \ue0 la mise en \u153uvre de pratiques d\u2019intervention innovantes avec les familles n\ue9gligentes. Dans le programme on a r\ue9alis\ue9 la premi\ue8re implantation de l\u2019Assessment Framework britannique, dans le but de construire une articulation coh\ue9rente des diff\ue9rents cadres d\u2019action autour des besoins des enfants \ue0 partir de l\u2019implication des parents et des enfants dans l\u2019analyse de la situation familiale, dans la construction du plan et son \ue9valuation. Cet article porte sur les donn\ue9es qui proviennent de l\u2019\ue9valuation de l\u2019implantation du programme P.I.P.P.I. en 56 territoires en 2013-2015