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Between 2007 and 2010, poverty among children and young people increased in many OECD countries. In Italy, poverty increased significantly among children (by 2.2 percentage points). In comparison with other countries in Europe, children and their families in Italy are clearly at significant risk of exposure to poverty. And the risk of poverty or social exclusion increases with the number of children in a family, according to Eurostat data. In responding to families in need, the Italian welfare system has traditionally depended more on cash transfers rather than the provision of professional intervention and support. Fondazione Zancan is developing a different approach called “generative welfare” based on the idea “I cannot help you without you” which raises the issue of the strengths the welfare recipients have to support their families and communities. This approach guided a study conducted by the Fondazione Zancan and the Fondazione L'Albero della Vita, which involved interviewing families in poverty to gain their perspectives. Researchers conducted 277 interviews with parents in 7 Italian cities. The aim was to investigate the needs of and supports provided to families experiencing poverty. It also focused upon the strengths of the families and what they might contribute to their families as well as communities. In this paper the study is described and the results presented. Finally, the researchers comment on the effectiveness of current social provisions for families experiencing poverty in Italy and the potential contribution of families themselves to finding a more effective approach.

A major challenge in child welfare is whether a program (or service) developed and successfully implemented in one jurisdiction, especially another country, will attain the same outcomes for children and families in another jurisdiction? This paper presents the “DCE Classification System” (Defining, Classifying, and Evaluating), a classification system that facilitates cross-jurisdiction comparisons of child and family services. The paper reviews the cross-national research literature in child and family services as well as literature on classification schemes and typologies. As an example of the issues that arise when importing a promising program, we briefly highlight the exporting and importing of family group conferencing. After tracing the history and development of the DCE Classification System, the paper describes the proposed classification scheme, and provides a brief example of how researchers and practitioners can use the classification system for cross-national comparisons of client outcomes and program costs. Finally, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, as well as possible benefits for child and family practices.

In this special issue of Children and Youth Services Review, we present a sampling of research and scholarship performed by members of the International Association for Outcome-Based Evaluation and Research on Family and Children's Services ( ia OBER fcs ). The ia OBER fcs is a small group of scholars in this arena, who have been invited to come together to work collaboratively on descriptive and comparative evaluations and research. The Association has been able to meet annually, in the various countries of its members, since 2001. We have organised these offerings to represent different theoretical perspectives and/or practical examples of outcome evaluation, embedded within the cultural and national perspectives of Association members from a variety of countries. Not all countries included in the International Association can be represented here, but we hope that this selection will provide a tasting of the fruits of our collaborations. In a recent seminar we proposed an image for depicting the International Association: we used the image of a tree. We will use that image for describing the history of the International Association for Outcome-Based Evaluation and Research on Family and Children's Services ( ia OBER fcs ).