Families, as a primary caretaker for children and other vulnerable members need relevant and thoughtful support in carrying out the complex task during life span. Contemporary societies are facing with a noticeable shifts in family realities, urging the need for the international practice, policy and academic community to respond.
The recent European Family Support Network (EFSN) initiative brought together academics, practitioners, activists and service users to work together through COST action on the development of new policies, service and practice orientation that have application across different sectors who serves families with children across the world. The intention is to systematize the evidence base for high quality family support, in order to evaluate all relevant policies and practices from the perspective of their contributions to family support. Moreover, crucial role in supporting families to raise their children belongs to the State and European policies. Paper will address this current initiatives, in order to let out obtained knowledge, experience and the common wisdom gained so far from the action.
COST Action, a science and technology network a is organized through a range of networking tools that support and ultimately achieve the action’s research coordination and capacity building. EFSN brings together academics, practitioners and activists from 35 European countries aiming to contribute to further conceptual and theoretical development in emerging field of family support. Foundational principles include rights-oriented conduct, ethical practice, participation reflected in a bottom-up process, multi- and cross-sectoral as well as multi- and inter-disciplinary nature, policy and practice awareness, evidence-based and pluralist approach to research and evaluation design, together with principle of inclusive communication and language.
Ultimate plan of EFSN is to:
• deliver comprehensive conceptual framework to underpin family support research, policy and practice
• establish evidence-based framework and related quality standards
• contribute to best practice in the education and training of family support practitioners and researchers, building on the evidence base it creates,
by using a multidisciplinary approach including various relevant scientific and professional disciplines working in this field.