Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Families_Share (Socializing and sharing time for work/ life balance through digital and social innovation)

Teaser

Balancing work and family life has become increasingly challenging in the last decade in Europe. The economic crisis had a twofold effect—impacting labor market conditions on one side and welfare provisions on the other. As a result, on the one hand, unemployment rates have...

Summary

Balancing work and family life has become increasingly challenging in the last decade in Europe. The economic crisis had a twofold effect—impacting labor market conditions on one side and welfare provisions on the other. As a result, on the one hand, unemployment rates have risen (mainly in male-dominated sectors), while on the other hand, more women (including mothers) are working on part-time schemes. A shrinking workforce of permanent workers is subject to augmented workloads and working hours, making the balance between work and everyday life more difficult and the current model unsustainable. At the same time, as a result of budget cuts in welfare public expenditure, in many European cities, the public offering of childcare services is insufficient. After-school activities have also become a luxury that low and medium-income families can rarely afford leading to impoverished learning and educational opportunities for children.
Families_Share aims to provide real and impactful childcare solutions to families via the use of a co-designed dedicated platform (android app in different languages). The project promotes the creation of communities that help make everyday life easier, allowing parents to find the right balance between work and private life, and create relationships of solidarity and trust in the workplace. The project is developed in Pilot Cities in different countries and will involve parents of children aged 3–14 that live in the same neighborhoods. Parents take turns organizing recreational activities for their children. Children, while having fun, can participate in the working world of parents, and parents can get involved by promoting activities related to their professional role or simply recreational. The Families_Share application makes it easier to manage activities and coordinate in order to cover certain time periods and maintain a well-organized shared calendar.

Work performed

Families_Share activities are deployed across four methodological pillars, namely: (1) co-design and community engagement; (2) user-centric design and implementation of technological components (3) pilot activities in different City Labs, (4) impact assessment.

(1) A co-design process actively engaged the stakeholders at each CityLab in the design of the Families_Share services through participatory methods. About 320 people had been involved in six CityLabs. Stakeholders range from private and public organization to citizens interested in sharing their competences within the initiative. Migrants and low-income families were mostly engaged in Bologna, Kortrijk, and Venezia. Trento focused on the workplace organizational context while Thessaloniki mainly involved women and members of social vulnerable groups.
We also provided a first baseline measurement of the behavioral profiles of the prospective Families-Share users. A survey was designed and distributed among the CityLabs from which a “child care profile”, a “sharing economy profile” and a “digital profile” was constructed. The survey was filled in by 665 respondents.

(2) We proceeded to leverage of existing open-source tools and platform and deployed a cloud-based software platform that supports the sharing of caring and learning services among families. A major output was the specification of the software architecture, both in terms of software design and its deployment strategy in the City Labs. The platform front-end component was built, utilizing the core principles of responsive web design in order to provide an optimal user experience. The platform was made available in English and in all the official languages of the Citylabs (IT, EL, HU, NL). Finally, by applying hybrid app technologies, all front-end functionalities were made accessible via the web browser, but also through native Android apps. The platform back-end was also developed. With the use of 3rd party APIs, RESTful endpoints were created that cover the platform’s functional requirements. The first version of the platform was deployed, leveraging the benefits of Docker architecture, which enables us to seamlessly deploy all different app instances in isolated environments.

(3) Piloting in terms of childcare sharing has been following a variety of models, from the self-organized summer camp/co-playing week form (Venice and Kortrijk), to the workshops sessions integrated (or not) in existing summer camps (Trento), after summer camps childcare sharing activities (HU), to the shared socialization activities with a more gradual and trust building oriented approach (Thessaloniki). The degree of autonomy of parents (activities run by parents on only or more or less integrated with professional/external support) was also different in the tested models. The usage of the Families Share Platform/App was also quite varied across the different City Labs.

(4) An impact assessment methodology for Families_Share was designed for assessing, in particular, the social and economic impacts of the Families_Share technical solution. The methodology is based on the IA4SI framework. The methodology is being set up through three consecutive phases: (1) pre-validation through a creative toolbox and focus group in summer 2018, (2) baseline measurement in winter 2019, and (3) final impact assessment in 2020. For the pre-validation, a creative toolbox with five assignments (including a survey) was developed. The toolboxes were distributed among the first users of Families_Share and completed by ten families per city lab.

Final results

The project provides evidence of the advantage of boosting citizens engagement, in contrast with previous initiatives (top-down programs initiated by companies, bottom-up projects using general purpose infrastructures, online apps with a commercial character). This innovative approach to welfare services can be the basis for the development of a set of concrete policy recommendations targeting both EU level and national stakeholders. In addition, the project aims to achieve a measurable improvement in cooperation among citizens and different stakeholders (NGOs, SMEs etc.) by the development of new sustainable and collaborative consumption patterns and delivery of innovative services. At the end, the project will asses the social impact and the social return of investment of the proposed services as well as a concrete and measurable set of indicators that could be applicable to future initiatives.

Website & more info

More info: https://families-share.eu/.