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• Family Support as an approach to supporting and protection children, young people and parents. • Pan-European issues involved in family support. • A social justice perspective on supporting and protection children, young people and parents. • Implications for policy, practice, research, evaluation and academia. • Based on a wider range of academic, policy and practice contributions. Family support as an approach to working with children, youth, parents, and families is widely practiced across Europe albeit with a range of diverse meanings and interpretations. This paper responds to this ambiguity and provides a conceptual understanding of the delivery of family support in Europe. In doing so it applies a social justice approach critically examining the extent to which Family Support reflects the right of families, children, youth, and parents to be supported. It identifies and critically examines similarities and differences in the meaning and application of family support as a key concept in the European context. It is based on a comprehensive review of literature, mapping multi-disciplinary approaches to the provision of support, based on academic material from 2015 to 2020 and adopting a broad and inclusive definition of family. The paper considers the complexities in developing a universally accepted understanding of family support that: has value for practitioners and managers; is selected as a focus by policy makers; is open to evaluation and research; is compatible with academic research; and most importantly provides responsive and effective support to children, youth, parents and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Value system of a society is often shaped by its constitution, affecting how society perceives family. • Modern constitutional provisions on family implicitly lean towards traditional family forms. • The notion of Family Support is rarely expressly mentioned in constitutions of European countries. • Family Support is seen as a part of supervision authority or general duty of states to assist families. • More inclusive constitutional provisions with a constructive, rights-based approach are needed. This paper aims to explore the extent in which contemporary constitutional concepts of the family influence the recognition of the importance and the implementation of family support in European context. The authors start from the premise that constitutions lay the foundation for national legislation and policy, at the same time indicating a state's recognition of internationally agreed standards in a given field. Considering family support as a human right, the authors reflect on the meaning of constitutional protection vis a vis policies and practices of providing support to children and families and look into family related constitutional provisions of various European countries. Building upon the work of the European Family Support Network – COST Action 18123, the key elements of constitutional protection of families are identified, having a direct effect on the conceptualization and delivery of family support. In conclusion, considering the place and significance afforded to family support in national constitutions, the paper offers a classification of constitutions in that respect and evaluates the implications of constitutional regulation on family support policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Diverse types of organizations involved in family support provision across Europe are systematically mapped. • Low representation of front-line practitioners in national family support networks. • Inter-country differences in networking building progress. • Development of the family support field by nurturing family support infrastructures both locally and globally, building hybrid evidence intermediary networks. Research has proven that family is the context for the development and well-being of the new generation, and parents need support in order to fulfill children and young people's physical, cognitive, emotional, and social needs. Most EU policy relating to children and young people is mediated through family even if this is not explicitly named. At a national level, European countries have been encouraged to offer family support initiatives through local authorities that promote positive parenting and guarantee children's rights. The current challenge in the family support landscape consists of engaging the European level with the local and national structures, in order to support the delivery of quality family support systems and services across Europe. This article reports on the progress in this area by the European Family Support Network (EurofamNet). EurofamNet was created with the purpose of establishing a pan-European family support network to inform family support policies and practices in order to contribute with global actions to face current challenges in family support agenda at European level. This paper introduces the mapping exercise performed by the network to identify key family support actors for research, policy, and practice at the European, local and national level. For this purpose, an expert-targeted approach was followed. Two experts identified 83 key family support actors at the European level, and a panel of 22 experts jointly identified 326 key actors and organizations in 17 European countries. The analysis of this mapping exercise offers an interesting mosaic of family support provision in different European countries that reflect both intra- and inter-network diversity in nature, scope, and sectors of family support actors and organizations. At the same time, this mapping exercise contributes to creating social fabric with the potential to facilitate knowledge mobilization of quality standards to be implemented for the guarantee of quality provision in family support in Europe. Practical implications for the development of the family support and wider services fields of this novel initiative of connecting the efforts of key actors in family support throughout Europe are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]