Project description
A scalable model for affordable childcare
The rising costs of childcare is placing a heavy burden on families. In fact, the childcare crisis has reached a boiling point, as families across the EU struggle with soaring costs and overwhelming demands of balancing work and personal life. The EU-funded Families_Share project aims to introduce a game-changing initiative. Through extensive needs analysis and resident engagement in seven European cities, the project will co-design a collective awareness platform. Through the power of technology and the strength of local communities, Families_Share aims to build a platform that enables citizens to come together and share tasks, time and skills related to childcare and after-school education. Additionally, it will challenge gender biases, break stereotypes, and promote inclusivity.
Objective
The overall objective of the project is to develop a social networking and awareness platform dedicated to childcare and work life balance. The platform builds on neighbourhood networks enabling citizens to come together and share tasks, time and skills relevant to childcare and after school education/leisure which have become unaffordable in times of stagnation and austerity. To achieve this objective the project borrows and integrates the concepts of time banking with some already developed digital social innovation experiments in the child care field represented in the consortium and seeks to further exploit the potential of ICT networks to increase participatory innovation in the sense of self-organizing neighbourhoods. The specific objectives of the project are:
- Exploring new ways for sharing and socializing child care needs and care work in urban communities facilitated by ICT
- Supporting families, couples and individuals with care tasks to find flexible solutions in their daily lives to cope with care work and time management needs in more balanced ways
- Raising awareness on the importance of overcoming gender biased views of care roles, as well as stereotypes related to intersected social differences (class and economic status, ethnic background, sexual orientation, etc.)
Proposed actions:
- Needs analysis and residents engagements in 7 Cities in Europe activating 7 Families_Share City Labs where needs analysis, platform co-design, pilot testing and local raising awareness campaigns will integrate.
- Co-designing an operational framework and a scalable collective awareness platform engaging existing communities of parents
- Pilot the platform in 7 cities
- Evaluate the impact of the adopted techno-social solution and the user engagement strategy
-Develop a scalable and replicable model for an affordable childcare scheme based on the Families Share Platform that will ensure sustainability and further exploitation in other EU cities.
Fields of science
- social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiescivil societynongovernmental organizations
- social sciencessociologysocial issuessocial inequalities
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementemployment
- social sciencessociologysocial issuesunemployment
- social sciencessociologydemographyhuman migrations
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
30123 Venezia
Italy