The effect of the pandemic on childcare services

2022/03/18 Type of resource: Topics: Titles:

The report The effect of the pandemic on childhood education services in Italy, prepared by a research group of the National Institute of Statistics and the Governance & Social Innovation Centre of the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, is available online on the website of the Department for Family Policies.

The report - prepared within the framework of a collaboration agreement signed on 31 December 2020 between the Department for Family Policies, ISTAT and Ca' Foscari University of Venice - reports the results of an extraordinary survey aimed at verifying the effects of the period of closure of early childhood education services due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent regulations on the early childhood education supply system in Italy. The research, which started on 7 April 2021, covered around 2,000 sample facilities nationwide.

The survey reveals a picture of substantial resilience on the part of childcare services, which have identified forms of response to the health emergency and the constraints it has imposed on service modes that are often innovative and can also be re-evaluated for the post-pandemic future.

"The picture outlined by the survey" the document reads,"also raises several questions that need to be addressed in the immediate and foreseeable future. For example, how unevenly the difficulties have affected an already unequal system, particularly affecting the private component of the educational services system, which nonetheless covers almost 50% of the supply, particularly in the south of Italy, where educational opportunities for the youngest children have historically been more difficult to develop. However, it is also important to note how the pandemic has affected the behaviour of new parents who were at times already reluctant to use structured educational services and who are now faced with the additional stress of using a community service with a related perception of danger."

The report is available in the dedicated news item.

Other materials and news can be found on this site under the topics Early Childhood Education Services and Children and Covid-19, which can be accessed via the "Topics" navigation menu.