Family support plays a key role in social, labour and economic development of European countries. Research has proven that family is the context for development and well-being of the new generation, and parenting is a resource that must be supported (Rodrigo et al., 2016). Nowadays, children’s rights are placed at the forefront of social policies and governments are encouraged to support caregivers in the exercise of their childrearing functions (Pecnick, 2007). Although family support is a recent discipline, research efforts have contributed not only to basic research, but also to improve policies and practices. Nevertheless, Europe needs a pan-European effort that provides high-impact research based on a participatory model (counting with the voice of a wide range of stakeholders) that informs family policies and practices at a European level responding to the different realities existing at national level (Jiménez et al., 2019). The European Family Support Network (EurofamNet) is aimed to create a pan-European family support network focused on family support policies and practices that can contribute with global actions to face the aforementioned challenge (EurofamNet, 2020).
EurofamNet is a bottom-up, evidence-based, multidisciplinary network funded as an Action (CA18123) under the COST program. A COST Action is a science and technology network funded over a four-year duration. It is organized through a range of networking tools that support and ultimately achieve the action’s research coordination and capacity building objectives. This Action aims to inform family policies and practices towards the ultimate goal of ensuring children’s rights and families’ well-being. EurofamNet is doing so by building collaborations between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, children and families, public and private agencies, and general society, trough a bottom-up process, a dialogic style and double-layered structure (national-European).