European Cooperation

Amici dei Bambini’s European Projects and Publications

Amici dei Bambini is strongly involved into the European Cooperation through the participation to European Programmes in order to explore and define new and innovative solutions for children in need, in particular for abandoned children.

Strategie di prevenzione al bullismo
As long as there will be an abandoned child, we will not abandon our commitment.

More in detail

About the final event

For further information call +39 02 988 221 or send an e-mail to: aibi@aibi.it

Our staff will be at your disposal.

Through transnational actions that foster collaboration and exchange between actors of European child protection systems, Amici dei Bambini promotes and/or manages research projects, exchange and mutual learning, social experimentations, design and validation of innovative services in the field of child protection.

Work in progress

Alfaca II,  co-financed by European Commission, aims to improve reception and care for unaccompanied children by structurally increasing the quality and quantity of family based care (FBC) for them.

It  collects and spreads practical knowledge about the state of the art on providing FBC for UMAs in the participating countries (BE, IT, CY, EL, HR). It improves FBC where it is currently already (scattered) practice and provide the possibility to set it up as a reasonable alternative to institutional care.

Activities are:

  • a situational analysis (supported by field consultations) to collect and spread practical knowledge about the state of the art on FBC in IT, EL, BE, HR, CY;
  • writing of country reports (including SWOT-analysis) and recommendations on next steps to take in order to reach a sustainable system (including an action plan);
  • offering the ALFACA-training;
  • follow up on the action plans and dissemination of outputs in MS.

At least 200 professionals from 10 Member States are directly  trained, thus becoming more specialised in providing FBC and guidance to the families. The improvement of the sustainability of systems on FBC will enable hundreds of professionals to ameliorate the care they provide.

The beneficiaries are unaccompanied children living in FBC. On the medium term, 3-5 years, the project expects to have influenced positively the lives of thousands of them, either as they live in FBC instead of institutional care, or as they live in improved and sustainable FBC.

The action

Alfaca II: Alfaca II, is co-financed by European Commission, REC- Rights, Equality and Citizenship program.

Goal: to enable project partners to establish sustainable implementation of family based care in their countries by:

  • bringing about shared visions on how to realise sustainable family based care;
  • developing action plans on how to further develop the national systems on this issue;
  • pushing for endorsement of the action plans by policymakers and governments;
  • further spreading the ALFACA-training itself.

Partner: Nidos Foundation (NL), Minor-Ndako (B), Pleegzorg Vlaams-Brabant (B), Mentor-Escale (B), Hope for Children (CY), METAdrasi – action for migration & development (GR), Amici dei Bambini (IT), Centre for missing and exploited children (HR).

Tools

The country report describes the current state of the art on family based care (including a SWOT- analysis) and recommendations on next steps to take in order to reach a sustainable system (including an action plan).

The country reports, recommendations and action plans will be available both in English and in languages of countries of partners.

Previous Project's Outputs

The Bullying in Institutional Care (BIC) anti-bullying intervention program aims at preventing and contrasting bullying among children and adolescents living in Residential Care settings. The BIC program is inspired to the best practices adopted to contrast bullying in school, such as KiVa in Finland and Notrap! in Italy ((Kärnä et al., 2011; Palladino, Nocentini & Menesini, 2015).

Specific goals of the program:

  • Increasing knowledge and understanding of bullying among professionals and children
  • Increasing professionals’ self-efficacy to handle bullying situations
  • Increasing interpersonal skills (social and emotional in particular) among all children and adolescents
  • Enhancing problem-solving strategies and adaptive coping skills among all children
  • Encouraging bystanders’ to help the victim
  • Reducing bullying and electronic forms of bullying among children and adolescents

The action

BIC: Bullying in institutional care was co-funded by European Commission, DG Justice – REC Program (2016-2018).

Goal: preventing and combating bullying in residential care settings through children empowerment and by encouraging greater collaboration between peers in Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and France.

Partners & Associates: Ai.Bi. Associazione Amici dei Bambini (Italy), Comune di San Giuliano Milanese (Italy), UNIFI (Italy),University Babes-Bolyai (Romany), GDSACP Dist 1 Bucharest (Romany), Nadia (Bulgaria), New Bulgarian University (Bulgaria), Ecole Samuel (France), EADAP (Greece),  Katholische Hochschule NRW (Germany)

Turku University (Finland), Istituto Innocenti.

Tools

The BIC program is not meant to last for a defined period. Instead, it should be part of the ongoing Institutional anti-bullying policy and can be a permanent program carried out in the education plan of the RCs.

In each toolkit you will find the handbook for applying the program and the tool for children involved.

For kids: children age from 6 to 11

For teens: children age from 12 to 18.

Before apply the program and download material read carefully the Manual for trainers, an easy self training tool.

BIC ANTIBULLYING PROGRAM
MANUAL FOR PROFESSIONALS – UNIT 1

Didactic tool bic-for-Kids
BIC ANTIBULLYING PROGRAM
MANUAL FOR PROFESSIONALS – UNIT 2

Didactic tool bic-for-Teens

BIC Tools Bulgarian Version.zip
BIC Tools Greek Version.zip
BIC-Tools-Francais-Version.zip
BIC-Tools-Romanian-Version.zip

Self-evaluation

The outcome evaluation of a program is of paramount importance in order to determine the effectiveness of a program and ways in which it can be improved. In particular, among the different evaluation technique, a before-and-after approach has been chose to evaluate BIC program outcomes, which consist of measures before and after the workshops and other activities, in order to assess any learning related to the program.

 

BIC SELF-EVALUATION GUIDE

By giving out a questionnaire on a before-and-after basis to those who took the training, analysis can determine the effectiveness of the program. Even though standardized questionnaires are easier to use, it is advisable to use measuring instruments that are specifically suited to the aims and contents of the training. Therefore, the questionnaire that has been used  to evaluate BIC program was specifically designed.

BIC self-evaluation tools .zip

Material Campaign

For preventing and contrasting bullying among children and adolescents living in Residential Care settings a set of communication tools for increasing awareness and for promoting proactive behavior was designed and realized together children involved into activities of BIC project.

Through a mixing technique among theatre components, video making, expression of himself through drawing, photo making and storytelling, a specialist leaded the work of children in residential care who had the opportunity to tell their point of view.

Very interesting how children from different country conceive what the bullying is.