Bisogni, risorse, persona: il servizio sociale di fronte alla sfida della generatività

Generativity is a constitutive dimension of social work, that is announced in its ethical bases but neglected in professional practice, in which the monetary intervention and the professional provision prevail.The research project was inspired by the “generative welfare” proposal and it is divided in two main parts. The first part aims at deepening the understanding of the processes of activation and empowerment of the people taken in charge by the social service. The second part focuses on the possibility and feasibility of an approach to social support endowed with more sociability.The generativity approach has been dealt with from two different point of view: the socio/anthropological and the social work one. The first perspective takes into account such issues as relational goods, social capital and the dimensions of subjectivity and significance. The second makes reference to the theories which enlighten the importance of the valorisation of people's resources and the constructionist approach.The qualitative research involved Sardinia and Trentino, and was divided into two levels. The first one involved the beneficiaries of the social work intervention: their stories were collected in order to come in touch with their representations of the condition they live, and their feelings about the support they received. The second level involved the social workers of the two regions. Through the focus group methodology it was possible to observe their representations about the social demand received by their offices and the effectiveness of the interventions.The empirical data underline the necessity to overcome a performance logic and to move to forms of help and support that holds responsible those who receive them.