How do we better protect the most vulnerable?
Four student research teams in four countries
show where family-centred approaches
make a measurable difference
and where the gaps remain
Through a joint social studies initiative supported by the Erasmus+ programme, IPC (Facultés Libres de Philosophie et de Psychologie) and the International Federation for Family Development (IFFD) have once again partnered this year to organize internships during June and July 2026. These internships aim to investigate one of the most pressing challenges of our time: the growing strain on public welfare systems worldwide.
Across Europe, social services are under pressure that grows with each passing year. Child protection agencies are stretched thin. Mental health services face waiting times measured in months, not days. Care systems for the elderly and people with disabilities are strained to their structural limits. Social assistance programmes, designed as safety nets, are increasingly carrying the weight they were never built to hold. The European Commission, Eurostat, the OECD, and the Council of Europe have all documented this trajectory in detail, and national research bodies across the continent have confirmed it at the local level. The numbers are consistent. The trend is not reversing.
The Valencia group with María José Rico, Director General of the Valencian Institute of Social Services — Sofia Asensio, Alice Chambon, Daniela Polanco, Victor Lucet, Stanislas Blehaut and Paul Théry.
Yet behind these figures lies a structural reality that policy debates rarely name directly: the gradual weakening of the family as the primary unit of social solidarity. This is not a nostalgic observation. It is a practical one. When families are stable and supported, they provide what no public institution can fully replicate — daily care, emotional continuity, long-term accompaniment through difficulty, and the quiet but essential transfers of support between generations. When families struggle — through poverty, breakdown, isolation, illness, or simple lack of community — the state must step in. And no state system, however competent or well-funded, can substitute for those bonds in full. The data make this visible: rising rates of family breakdown, growing numbers of children in alternative care, increasing proportions of elderly people without close family networks, and adults navigating hardship alone.
When families are strong, fewer people fall through the cracks.
When they weaken, social services pay the price. It is time to act on the evidence.
The Carinthia group with the Regional Minister Peter Reichmann, Director General Gerhild Hubmann, Head of Department Raphael Schreier-Schmid and Ignacio Socias — Emilia Miller-Aichholz, Emma Manso and Edwige Restout.
It is a rare opportunity to see the full chain — from months of fieldwork in four countries, to the advocacy rooms of international institutions, to the concrete question of how policy can be shaped in favour of families and those who depend on them. Whether you come as a student, a researcher, an NGO professional, or a policymaker, your expertise and your perspective belong in this conversation. We invite you to engage fully — and to leave better equipped to turn knowledge into change.
Investing seriously in families is not a conservative talking point or a values-laden preference.
It is an evidence-based response to social vulnerability — one that deserves to sit at the centre of European social policy.
The Malta group with Ignacio Socias — Sibille de Kerdanet, Augustin Sadek, Lou-Anne Masson and Ivana Pinto Pereira.
IPC — Facultés Libres de Philosophie et de Psychologie — trains students in philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences with a strong emphasis on applied knowledge and ethical engagement with the world. This Erasmus+ programme organized with IFFD is a direct expression of that mission. It is designed to close the gap between research and impact — to give students real experience of how knowledge is gathered, analysed, and then transformed into advocacy that reaches policymakers.
From fieldwork to the United Nations,
this is where research becomes advocacy, and advocacy becomes change.
The Treviso group with Ignacio Socias — Christian du Plessis de Grenédan, Mariac Tesson, Madeleine Chéneaux de Levritz, Marguerite Larghero, Fabio Degueldre and Mathilde Veve.
FOCUS
By mobilizing students and researchers, this joint IPC-IFFD initiative aims to study these dynamics across different societies, proving that investing in family stability is not just a cultural preference, but a pragmatic necessity for sustaining social protection anywhere in the world.
To translate this overarching mission into concrete, ground-level action, the project relies on a highly immersive operational model.
A cohort of 20 students is divided into four specialized research teams and deployed through the Erasmus+ framework for 50 days of intensive fieldwork.
Rather than observing from a distance, these young researchers embed themselves directly inside the institutions that bear the daily weight of weakened family structures at the local level —child protection services, disability support networks, legal guardianship bodies, and community therapeutic centers.
Operating across four distinct regions in Europe, they gather specific, localized data to understand how different systems respond to the same social pressures and what we can learn from it.
CONTENTS
Despite the diversity of national settings and populations, the four programmes come together around six cross-cutting themes. These themes give the programme its comparative strength.
1. From Institution-Centred to Person- and Community-Centred Models
The tension between institutions and communities is at the heart of all four projects, though it looks different in each setting.
2. Collecting Authentic Testimony from People in Situations of Institutional Dependence
Each field site involves the direct participation of the people affected by the policies being studied, while adapting its methods to the vulnerability of those populations.
3. The Family as an Active Player, Not Just a Background Factor
In line with IFFD’s family perspective, all four projects treat the family not as a passive backdrop but as a full participant in protection and care systems.
4. Complex Multi-Stakeholder Governance
Analysing these governance structures is one of the programme’s most important comparative contributions. Public, voluntary, church-based, and private actors all coexist and try to coordinate — sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
5. Anchoring in International Legal Standards
The four projects draw on different but complementary international legal frameworks. Comparing these different legal anchors will show how the same UN conventions are applied differently across national contexts. It will also show how field research can feed into IFFD’s work at UN commissions (CPD, CSoCD, CSW, CRC).
6. Methodology Under Constraint
All four studies share the same structural constraint: 50 days of fieldwork, mixed methods, and vulnerable populations. This shared constraint creates a rich basis for methodological comparison. How do you combine document review, interviews, focus groups, and quantitative data within such a tight schedule? How do you handle the ethical challenges that arise with each population — children in protection, people under legal guardianship, migrants, and the elderly? How do you guarantee data quality while complying with GDPR rules and adapted consent requirements?
From fieldwork to the United Nations,
this is where research becomes advocacy,
and advocacy becomes change.
PROGRAMME
The four projects share a common foundation that makes comparing them worthwhile:
- All are Erasmus+ KA2 Cooperation Partnerships with the same fieldwork duration.
- All use mixed methods — mainly qualitative, with a quantitative component — within a case-study design.
- All connect explicitly to United Nations legal standards.
- All reflect the family perspective that IFFD promotes at the UN.
OBJECTIVES
Through these internships, we seek to achieve three main objectives:
- First, to provide a clear analysis of the challenges together with practical recommendations for addressing them.
- Second, to complement the students’ academic education through highly practical fieldwork, enabling them to connect their theoretical studies with concrete action.
- Third, to strengthen the IPC’s international reputation and visibility by expanding its international activities and producing high-quality research.
FEATURED STUDIES
The importance of executing the project in this manner cannot be overstated. These 50-day deployments are not theoretical academic exercises; they are urgent, practical contributions to social policy.
By analyzing four entirely different topics—guardianship, community services, eldercare technology, and child protection—through the shared lens of family-centered care, the 18 students are able to identify exactly where systemic gaps remain and where targeted approaches make a measurable difference. The resulting data provides a clear picture of what works on the ground, allowing the project to generate transferable, rights-based recommendations.
Ultimately, this transforms local research into powerful, international advocacy, providing policymakers with the exact blueprints needed to build more humane and effective social protection systems.
Here is how the project is carried out across the four field sites and the specific topics they address:
Towards a More Person-Centred Guardianship System in Valencia
This study provides a clearer understanding of whether recent reforms in support and care systems in Europe are genuinely helping vulnerable people to live with greater autonomy, participation, and dignity in their everyday lives. It identifies the practical conditions that make person-centred support effective, including the role played by institutions, professionals, and especially families. By combining the experiences of all of them, it aims to produce concrete recommendations to improve coordination, strengthen family support, and develop more humane and effective care systems. This is also why the results are intended to be transferable and useful for organisations and public authorities working to promote autonomy, inclusion, and rights-based support for people in vulnerable situations.
Evaluation of Community and Therapeutic Services
in Malta
This project provides a clear picture of how social and therapeutic support services function and how effectively they respond to the needs of vulnerable people. It studies how public institutions, charities, Church-related organisations, and private actors work together to support children and families, people struggling with addiction or mental health difficulties, persons with disabilities, the elderly, homeless individuals, and migrants. The research evaluates whether these services are accessible, well coordinated, and adapted to people’s real needs, taking into account the perspectives of both professionals and service users. It also identifies successful practices, current weaknesses, and emerging challenges associated with demographic change and rising social demands.
Mindset Towards Technology and Innovations in Care Work in Veneto
This research examines how digital technologies and innovations —particularly artificial intelligence—are perceived and experienced in the elderly care sector in that northern region of Italy. It explores the attitudes, levels of awareness, and needs of three closely connected groups: care workers, service users, and the relatives of users, with particular attention to the indirect perspectives of families as expressed through themselves, care managers and professionals. The findings show how these technologies are integrated into everyday work and care processes, and how they are understood and evaluated by those involved. It also compares the findings with evidence from other regions in Italy and from international contexts, to identify common trends, differences, and transferable lessons.
From Residential Institutions to Family and Community-Based Support in Carinthia
The work focuses on how the child protection system can move away from an institution-based model of care towards a system centred on prevention, families, and community support. It examines how social services in that part of Austria can identify key moments of risk—when a child or family is in difficulty but early intervention can still prevent separation or harm. The research analyses what interventions should look like in these situations, highlighting approaches that are child-centred, evidence-based, coordinated across services, and grounded in children’s rights. The aim is to understand how the system can shift from relying on residential care to strengthening timely support within families and communities, ensuring that children grow up in safe and stable environments whenever possible.
