Italian social policies coping with fragility: the challenge of continuity in time, space and life pathways

By definition, welfare support deals with fragility and provides actions and resources to sustain individuals and families that are fragile or to prevent them to become fragile when social risks hit them. Yet, welfare policies and programs are themselves fragile. Particularly, in our view the lack of continuity in welfare support compromises appropriateness and effectiveness of interventions, opening up the risk of fragility. In the perspective of this book, then, we propose to consider continuity as a crucial feature of welfare support, that allows to develop practices and actions that may support antifragility of individuals, organisations and territories, and of policies themselves.