L’educatore a domicilio. Tra riflessività e buone prassi

The constant rise in the demand for home-care interventions by local Social Services attests to the critical need to provide educational support to families who live in situations of instability and vulnerability. These interventions represent prevention measures against institutionalization and a way to guarantee the child’s right to a family. However, investments are not always correlated in terms of quality and recognition of educators who work in families’ houses. There is an urgent need for pedagogical reflection on the educational support offered to families within the normal context of life and the promotion of family empowerment. The research aims to inquire about, in the context of social pedagogy, the help offered to parents and children through home-care interventions and the training with which to provide the educator who works at home. This paper presents an action-research project which involves seven educators with experience in home-care services in Public Socio-Educative Service in a small area of Northern Italy. The practitioners are involved in semi-structured written interviews with in-depth themes of educational relationships, communication and management of everyday household dynamics. The analysis of collected data provides some pedagogical categories to gain involvement of educational support and an accompaniment for the family at home. In a perspective of parenting support, the family is accompanied to identify resources and critical issues and to search for new communicative and relational styles and strategies. A good training of the educators aims to gain competences for family support and to further empowerment.