Innocenti Insight CITIES WITH CHILDREN - UNICEF-IRC · Innocenti Insight CITIES WITH CHILDREN ... Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) hosts the internation-al secretariat of the Child

UNICEFInnocenti Research Centre

Innocenti Insight

CITIES WITH CHILDRENCHILD FRIENDLY CITIES IN ITALY

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Innocenti Insight

CITIES WITH CHILDREN

CHILD FRIENDLY CITIES IN ITALY

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2 Innocenti Research Centre

Layout: Bernard & Co, Siena, Italyipografia, Sesto Fiorentino FI, Italia

Front cover picture: Guido Cozzi/Atlantidephototravel.com

ISBN: 88-89129-25-5

© 2005 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

Acknowledgements

This report was written by Claudio Baraldi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, who was commissionedby UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre to serve as lead researcher for this project. Guido Maggioni, Carlo Bo Uni-versity, Urbino, has co-authored Chapter 2. Raymond Lorenzo, Scientific Director, Cooperativa ABCittà, Milan /Perugia, has acted as a consultant to the project, helping document the background and identify key themesand the evolution of the Child Friendly Cities movement in Italy.

Under the scientific supervision of Guido Maggioni and Claudio Baraldi, field work and data analysis have beencarried out with the assistance of Rossella Cecchini, Sabrina Carotti, Gabriella Cortesi, Vittorio Iervese, MariaPaola Mittica, Fabrizio Pappalardo, Barbara Raspugli, Elisa Rossi, Pietro Saitta, Angela Vallarelli.

Maria Letizia Sabatino, Ministry of the Environment, Government of Italy, Christoph Baker and Chiara Ricci, ItalianCommittee for UNICEF, Aldo Fortunati, Istituto degli Innocenti, Florence, Italy have contributed to developing thestructure of the research study. The text has been reviewed and further enriched by Eliana Riggio Chaudhuri andMarco Corsi, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, and Laura Baldassarre, Italian Committee for UNICEF. KeithRichmond has edited the English version of the report.

This document is also published in Italian language under the title La città con i bambini. Città amiche dell’infanziain Italia.

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The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre

The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, was established in 1988 to strengthen the researchcapability of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and to support its advocacy for children worldwide.The Centre (formally known as the International Child Development Centre) helps to identify and research cur-rent and future areas of UNICEF’s work. Its prime objectives are to improve international understanding ofissues relating to children’s rights and to help facilitate the full implementation of the United Nations Conven-tion on the Rights of the Child in both developing and industrialized countries.

The Centre’s publications are contributions to a global debate on child rights issues and include a wide rangeof opinions. For that reason, the Centre may produce publications that do not necessarily reflect UNICEF poli-cies or approaches on some topics. The views expressed are those of the authors and are published by the Cen-tre in order to stimulate further dialogue on child rights.

The Centre collaborates with its host institution in Florence, the Istituto degli Innocenti, in selected areas ofwork. Core funding for the Centre is provided by the Government of Italy, while financial support for specificprojects is also provided by other governments, international institutions and private sources, including UNICEFNational Committees.

The opinions expressed are those of the authors and editors

and do not necessarily reflect the policies or views of UNICEF.

All correspondence should be addressed to:

UNICEF Innocenti Research CentrePiazza SS. Annunziata, 1250122 Florence, ItalyTel: (+39) 055 20 330Fax: (+39) 055 20 33 220Email general: [email protected] publication orders: [email protected]: www.unicef.org/irc and www.unicef-irc.orgWebsite Child Friendly Cities Secretariat: www.childfriendlycities.org(Electronic versions of this publication can be downloaded online)

3Cities with childrenInnocenti Research Centre

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Over the past decade, Italy has witnessed the growthof a movement of Child Friendly Cities (CFC). With thesupport of the national government, the academicworld, the mass media, the private social sector, non-governmental and civic organisations, children andadolescents, local authorities have been the mainactors in a process leading to “child friendly” institu-tional reforms, regulations, plans, policies and funds.The Italian experience represents an innovative exam-ple in the context of the global Child Friendly Cities Ini-tiative promoted by UNICEF and its Research Centreboth in the ‘South’ and ‘North’ of the world. UNICEFInnocenti Research Centre (IRC) hosts the internation-al secretariat of the Child Friendly Cities Initiative and,in this context, documents innovative experiences oflocal governance systems engaged in realising chil-dren’s rights. IRC acts as a hub for analysing success-ful methods and good practices, disseminating inno-vations and supporting national, regional and globalnetworks that promote local experimentation in thearea of child rights. The Centre has thus contributed todefine the framework and the necessary steps fordeveloping a Child Friendly City.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child(1989) provided the framework for developing ChildFriendly Cities and, later, the UN Special Session onChildren (2002) highlighted the role of mayors andthe local governments in achieving children’s rightsand goals at the local level. National and local Plansof Action for Children were drafted to translate intopractice the commitments made at internationallevel. In particular, Law 285/97, “Provisions to pro-mote rights and opportunities for children and ado-lescents,” has supplied the legal framework forimplementing the Convention in Italy and creating a

national fund for children. Article 7 of Law 295/97 pro-vides financial and legal support to the SustainableCities for Girls and Boys Project launched by the Min-istry of the Environment following the commitmentmade at the Istanbul City Summit (1996) to establisha national CFC programme. It set the stage for theItalian Mayors who created the Mayors as Defendersof Children Initiative, with the active involvement ofthe Italian Committee for UNICEF, to join hands andestablish a network of cities and communities com-mitted to giving space to children – in roads, schoolsand town-halls.

Since the early 1990s, Italy experimented on theCFC approach, starting with the network of ‘Cities forChildren’ created by the National Research Counciland further institutionalising a national programmewith the Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys Project.Innovations were developed on three main fronts: par-ticipatory planning involving children in planning thephysical space as well as social and cultural interven-tions, children’s municipal councils giving children aninstitutional forum for formulating collective deci-sions, and initiatives to encourage independent mobil-ity by children enabling them to explore their environ-ment without being accompanied by an adult.

The study, developed in collaboration with theMinistry of the Environment, Government of Italy, theItalian Committee for UNICEF and the Istituto degliInnocenti, an Italian NGO, and carried out by the Uni-versity of Modena and Reggio Emilia and Carlo BoUniversity, Urbino, documents how Child FriendlyCities have grown in Italy into a national networkfavouring the implementation of the Convention atthe local, sub-national level.


FOREWORD

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The research project has focused on 12 citiesselected on the basis of their performance as partici-pants in the Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys Pro-ject, geographical location and population size. Inter-views with local authorities, planners and technicalstaff elicited information and analysis from the primemovers of the initiative. Focus group interviews withchildren and adolescents, and video recordingsmade in a variety of child participation sessionsrevealed the perceptions of young people involved inparticipatory processes aimed to making their livingenvironment more appropriate.

The CFC movement has developed at the cross-road of a new vision of childhood, which recognisesthe child as an active subject from his/her ownyounger age, and a new culture of the city, whichencourages citizens to participate in processes aimedto make the physical and social environment moresustainable and equitable. The synthesis of the twonotions stands as the core of the Italian CFC model.

Experimentation to encourage participation byyoung citizens is therefore central to the approach.Children and adolescents have an opportunity tocome into contact with the adult world on a moreequal footing, learn about their own rights and appre-ciate the effect of people’s participation in making col-lective decisions. Adults have started changing theirviews of childhood and appreciate the possibilitiesopen to young people when they become engaged.

The principles affirmed in the Convention on theRights of the Child concerning citizenship, rights andparticipation by children have helped redefine themeaning of childhood and young people’s place inthe city. A growing number of local authorities, plan-ners, practitioners and families regard children asactive citizens capable of contributing to social life. Itis being recognised that young citizens suffer thegreatest disadvantages from degrading urban life,being deprived of possibilities for meeting andsocialising. Increasingly threatened by violence, pol-lution and traffic, children can no longer go out ontheir own. They live segregated from adults in spe-cialised places built with the primary aim of protect-ing them. Very little time and space are left for activi-ties decided by children independently. They aredeprived of opportunities to leave the security of thehome, experience independence, and learn how toface and overcome conflicts.

Local innovators challenge the overprotective atti-tude in the family, the total management of children’ssocial life and an education system that request chil-dren to change without sufficiently taking their viewsinto consideration. Opportunities are created forempowering the child to act as a person, a citizen anda social actor especially encouraging young citizensto contribute to participatory planning exercises andinfluencing decision-making processes. In a CFC,gaining personal independence and participating areinterdependent variables in a process leading to theharmonious physical, psychological, emotional andsocial development of the child. Young people’s par-ticipation in both planning and implementing activi-ties has become the hallmark of the Italian CFC expe-

rience, as an institutional principle and as a practiceto change the city, the community and the overallenvironment where children grow up.

Children’s and young people’s municipal councilsare the most common channel for promoting chil-dren’s participation in decisions. Since 1991, theyhave given children a mouthpiece within the localgovernment for voicing their aspirations andrequests as citizens, in a relationship of collaborationand shared responsibility with the institutions. Theprimary objective of the councils is to involve chil-dren in managing the city from their own unique per-spective, with adequate recognition of their evolvingcapacities. Secondly, they aim to an educationalobjective, offered by the opportunity to interact withthe local institutions, thus developing a civic sense ofbelonging to the community, as well as a respect forcommon values. At both levels, children gain accessto a real mechanism for exercising their rights.

The study pays particular attention to the roleplayed by schools in promoting children’s participa-tion. The education sector is the primary channel forextending participation to larger numbers of youngpeople. The traditional cognitive and normative goalsof the education system, however, may risk creatingambivalence with the goal of free self-expression setin participatory processes. Defining the role of theteacher becomes essential in this context to ensurethat her or his function as a guidance provider becomplemented with that of a facilitator.

In the Italian context, Child Friendly Cities havefavoured the achievement of critical goals set for chil-dren locally, such as creating a system of safeguardsto enable children and adolescents to exercise theirrights, promoting action aimed to oppose povertyand exclusion, overcoming social and culturalinequalities, contrasting child exploitation, prevent-ing juvenile delinquency, integrating foreign andchildren with disabilities, supporting families,encouraging development cooperation activities infavour of the rights of the child, and last but not theleast, mobilising action to favour opportunities forrecreation and play. Where the CFC experimentationhas been successful, the world of children has beenturned upside down to allow adults and young peo-ple alike to assess the surrounding environment fromthe bottom up, from the point of view of those whohad not been thus far listened to, because, to put it inone of the children’s words, “When you do an ordi-nary lesson, the teachers decide everything, whatyou do, what you don’t do. Instead when we do thechildren’s project they listen to your opinions andyou decide too what you want to do”.

Antonio Sclavi Marta Santos PaisPresident Director

Italian Committee UNICEFfor UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre


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7Innocenti Research Centre

CONTENTSForeword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1. Child Friendly Cities in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111.1 Children and cities in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111.2 The Italian Government’s National Plan of Action for Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121.3 A law on children’s rights and Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131.4 The new culture of childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151.5 The new culture of the city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171.6 The relationship between the child and the urban environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181.7 Guidelines for changing the city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191.8.The significance of a CFC in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2. Innovations and Efforts in Building Cities Friendly to Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212.1 From national policies to local actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212.2 Encouraging participation by children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

2.2.1 Children’s and young people’s councils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222.2.2 Participatory planning workshops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232.2.3 Encouraging mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

2.3 Governance of the city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242.3.1Transforming local administrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252.3.2 Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252.3.3 Training and capacity building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

2.4 Encouraging services and facilities for play and socialising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262.4.1 Facilities for children’s play and socialising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272.4.2 Socialising centres for adolescents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.5 Encouraging socialising within the community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292.6 Raising awareness in the city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

2.6.1 Making children aware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302.6.2 Fostering coexistence between cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

2.7 The new environmental policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

3. Analysis of Good Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333.1 Encouraging participation and education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333.2 Participatory planning with children. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

3.2.1 Meanings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343.2.2 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343.2.3 Implementing projects designed by children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

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3.3 Participating in decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363.3.1 The meaning of the two models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363.3.2 Selecting young people’s council members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363.3.3 Activities by children’s councils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363.3.4 The children’s and the adults’ roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373.3.5 Educational practices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373.3.6 Promoting decision practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

3.4 Encouraging children to move freely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373.5 Innovative services and facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383.6 Children’s views on their own participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

3.6.1 Strengths and weaknesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393.7 Overall effectiveness of the practices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

3.7.1 Organisational effectiveness: coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413.7.2 Effectiveness of the process: encouraging participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413.7.3 Effectiveness of results: changing the city and children’s lives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423.7.4 Effectiveness in dissemination: the cultures of childhood and the city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433.7.5 Effectiveness of planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

3.8 Guidelines for encouraging child participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 3.9 Good practices and desirable changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

3.9.1 Good practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443.9.2 Desirable changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46


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The last decade in Italy has seen a growing and gener-al interest in initiatives in favour of Child Friendly Cities(CFCs), and this now widespread socio-political andinstitutional phenomenon was given systematic formin the second half of the decade by an overall govern-ment plan and policies. In connection with broad, newattention to the rights of the child, the Italian Govern-ment and the regional and local administrations devel-oped policies, approved regulations and allocatedfunds specifically aimed at improving living conditionsfor children in cities. There has also been growing inter-est in these topics shown by local authorities, the aca-demic world, the mass media, the private social sector,and from society in general, including children.

The roots of this interest and of the actions under-taken are varied, some even preceding the UN Con-vention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (1989), whichhowever supplied the fundamental impetus for thesedevelopments. The UN Special Session on Children,held in New York in May 2002, highlighted the role ofmayors and local governments in achieving chil-dren’s rights and goals at the local level.

The three pillars in the development of a move-ment for child-friendly cities in Italy have been:● Affirmation of a new culture of childhood that

recognises the child as an active subject fromhis/her own young age and promotes innovativepolicies which encourage empowering educationand participation processes

● Emergence of a new sustainable and participatoryculture of the city

● Emphasis on a new relationship between the childand the city, constituting the synthesis of the firsttwo and standing at the core of the Italian CFCs

The purpose of this study is to document howCFCs have been established in Italy, both at thenational and the local levels, by analysing the trends,methodologies and strategies. From this emerge thelessons to be learned and the policies to be followedon the path towards success. It is aimed at a reader-ship consisting of policy-makers, municipal staff,educators, NGOs, research institutions, internationalagencies and other actors involved in developingchild-friendly processes in local governance settings.

The Italian cities considered here represent anacceptable sample of those that took part in the Cittàsostenibili delle bambine e dei bambini (CSDBB),(Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys) Project and uti-lized funds granted under Law 285/97. The resultsobtained are still limited, though certainly not irrele-vant in terms of environmental, institutional and cul-tural changes. In these cities there is still a fairly wide-spread degree of inefficiency in organising theprogramme and an excessive dependency on theviews of individual administrators, technicians andother staff. Nonetheless, interesting and novel formsof intergenerational communication between thesecategories and children have been achieved, even ifthey have not yet become general. In particular, sig-nificant difficulties persist in interfacing with the pre-vailing school system and its culture, leading to ashortfall in generalising innovative practices whichhave not been applied everywhere with the same levelor quality.

One important fact is that there has been a signif-icant effect on the views of many of the children. Theyhave been able to come into contact with new formsof communication with the adult world, to get to

INTRODUCTION

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know their own rights and to taste the possibilitiesarising from their own participation in decision-mak-ing processes.

In Italy, as local authorities themselves admit, theCFC programme has not fully achieved the objectiveof radically transforming the institutional, environ-mental and cultural framework of cities from a child’sperspective. It has however influenced policies andpractices, especially those concerning children’s par-ticipation, taking on a particular cultural and technicalprominence in local governance systems, perhapseven a significant one at an international level. Theseare grounds for great interest in the future, and ought

also to motivate national and local governments tocontinue along the same road.

The sections that follow cover the main aspects ofItaly’s experience with CFCs. The first looks at theevolution of the culture of childhood in Italy and thedevelopment of CFCs in the context of a new cultureof the city. The next section illustrates the main initia-tives undertaken to build Child Friendly Cities andconsidered innovative in cultural, institutional orenvironmental terms. The final section analyses thesignificant and novel aspects of the processes andpractices under way in creating CFCs.

10 Introduction Innocenti Research Centre

The Study

The research for this study has been carried out by the Universities of Urbino, Modena and Reggio Emilia. In addi-tion to a systematic analysis of the scientific literature and of documentation relating to Law 285/97 (the principallegal instrument relating to the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Italy as well as theestablishing of Child Friendly Cities) and the Ministry of the Environment’s project Città sostenibili delle bambine edei bambini or CSDBB (Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys), a close look was given to the projects of 400 Italiancities.

The research focussed on 12 cities selected on the basis of their performance as participants in the CSDBB project,their geographical location and the size of their populations (50,000 inhabitants being the threshold established bythe Ministry of the Environment for recognition as a Sustainable City for Girls and Boys).

Cities with more than 50,000 inhabitantsFano, in the Province of Pesaro in the MarcheFerrara, a provincial capital in Emilia RomagnaModena, a provincial capital in Emilia RomagnaPesaro, a provincial capital in the MarcheTurin, the regional capital of Piedmont

Cities with less than 50,000 inhabitantsBelluno, a provincial capital in the Veneto Carpi, in the Province of Modena in Emilia RomagnaCorigliano Calabro, in the Province of Cosenza in CalabriaMolfetta, in the Province of Bari in ApuliaNovellara, in the Province of Reggio Emilia in Emilia RomagnaOstuni, in the Province of Brindisi in ApuliaRozzano Milanese, in the Province of Milan in Lombardy

160 interviews were carried out with administrators, planners and technical staff; furthermore, 68 focus group inter-views were held with children and adolescents engaged in these activities, and video recordings were made on 50occasions when children and adolescents interacted with facilitators and other adults.

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1.1 Children and cities in Italy

In Italy, policies concerning children have had a longgestation period (Saraceno, 1990). From the end ofthe war until the early 1990s, the child as a citizenentitled to rights did not appear on the national polit-ical agenda, which continued to consider childrenonly as future adult citizens.

In this period, however, the approach to policiesin favour of children underwent a slow but significanttransformation. As from the 1950s, some educationaland cultural experiments had been associated withspecial attention to the needs and rights of children.These innovations gave birth to an active pedagogycentred on the ‘child as subject’. They influenced thegradual reform of the education system and a moregeneral adoption of the education process as themain instrument for changing cultural patterns. Theobjective of these experiments was not only toreform the science of education (and hence theschool), but also to renew the relationship betweenthe child and the overall social context, including theurban environment.

As well as the intense and productive experimen-tation in schools, as in the famous case of ReggioEmilia pre-school innovative project (Edwards, Gan-dini, Forman, 1993), a variety of experiments withyouth associations were also embarked on. In thefirst half of the 1970s, moreover, in various Italiancities associations were formed that turned their pri-orities towards the most neglected urban areas tooffer forms of social leadership there. This movementfirst arose in connection with the experience of de-institutionalising the mental hospitals, moving theninto the area of social exclusion, with the aim of

encouraging the expressivity of children and adoles-cents coming from impoverished backgrounds. Inparallel, there was an affirmation of the driving roleof the environmentalist associations, in particular inspreading a new ecological culture.

The Italian economic boom in the 1970s coincid-ed with economic and planning policies that did nottake proper account of the urban and extra-urbanareas, with negative effects in both town-planningand social terms. Starting in the 1960s, the ‘ecologi-cal question’ began to pervade debates on econom-ic and urban growth, and in Italy too criticalthoughts about the dominant planning policiesbegan to arise.

In this period the first national associations andlocal committees for the defence of the environmentand the landscape grew in importance (Italia Nostra,WWF, Legambiente), organisations which wouldhave influenced the development of Child FriendlyCities (CFC) strategies later in Italy. As from the1970s, too, professional exchanges between Euro-pean and American scholars and planners steadilyincreased, introducing in Italy new concepts andstrategies to urban planning with a participatoryapproach.

This was a first stage in promoting participationby children, during which the first actions wereembarked on leading to their genuine empower-ment. In out-of-school environments, the world of theassociations, the local authorities and professionalsinvolved children and adolescents in new educationprojects to improve their conditions in the cities.

11Child Friendly Cities in ItalyInnocenti Research Centre

1CHILD FRIENDLY CITIES IN ITALY

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1.2 The Italian Government’s

National Plan of Action for Children

The content of the Italian Government’s NationalPlan of Action for Children and Adolescents (1997)was developed in close collaboration with localauthorities, institutions and the private social sectorthrough meetings, seminars and parliamentary ses-sions over the period from 1994 to 1997. Particularimportance was attached to the joint action of thevarious ministries concerned (Environment, Educa-tion, Social Solidarity, Equal Opportunities and For-eign Affairs) and Regional governments. The third

sector was identified as a key partner, particularly atthe local level.

Based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child(CRC), the Plan or Action marked the passage of thechild from being an object of protection to being a cit-izen, with the recognised right to express needs,potentials and expectations that should be taken intoaccount in decision-making processes affecting localcommunities and the country as a whole.

The Plan of Action has the objective of furtheringthe participatory pathways that link social interventionwith environmental compatibility. It allots to the

12 Child Friendly Cities in Italy Innocenti Research Centre

Policies for a New Culture of Childhood

New policies and initiatives emerged from and favoured a new culture of childhood.

1975 - Riforma del diritto di famiglia (Law on the Rights of the Family) was adopted.

1983 - Disciplina dell’adozione e dell’affidamento dei minori (Law on child adoption and fostering) was adopted.

1983 - The Comitato Interministeriale per i problemi dell’infanzia (Inter-ministerial Committee on the Problems ofChildhood) was established.

1986 - This Committee was formalised and made permanent as the Consiglio Nazionale dei Minori or CNM (Nation-al Council on Juveniles).

1988 - Law 312 stipulated an agreement between the Italian government and UNICEF which led to the setting up ofthe International Child Development Centre (ICDC), now called the Innocenti Research Centre (IRC), located in theIstituto degli Innocenti in Florence.

1990 - The UNICEF research project called “The Urban Child in Difficult Circumstances” marked a turning point inthe development of the culture of childhood in Italy. This project aimed both to carry out research on the living con-ditions of urban children and to analyse critically policies and programmes for children.

1990 - World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children, agreed to at the World Summitfor Children, 30 September 1990.

After 1990 - The UNICEF international project Sindaci Difensori Ideali dell’Infanzia (Mayors Defenders of Children)assigned a central role to mayors. This started a dialogue among the institutions, citizens and the children them-selves on the real conditions of children at the local level. The Italian Committee for UNICEF played a key role infostering this initiative both in Italy and internationally.

1991 - The ratification of the CRC, made operative through Law 176, marked the development of new policies infavour of children.

1992 - International Colloquium of Mayors, held in Dakar, Senegal.

1996 - The European Strategy for Children by the Council of Europe adopted the principles laid down by the CRC,recommending member states always to ‘bear the interests and needs of children in mind in all policy decisions”.

1995 - A few months later, the Italian Government set up a parliamentary and inter-ministerial commission with thetask of analysing the government’s actions and readying a national action plan for children as soon as possible.

1996 - As part of administrative decentralisation, the Associazione Nazionale dei Comuni Italiani (National Associ-ation of Italian Municipalities) created a Committee on Children to coordinate the increasingly widespread initia-tives of municipalities in favour of children and adolescents.

1996 - Later in the year, the Committee organised a conference, held in Venice, on the theme of child-friendly citiesand stressed the role of local authorities in the development of the National Plan of Action for Children and Ado-lescents and the laws connected with it.

1997 - Law 451 established the Osservatorio nazionale per l’infanzia (National Monitoring Centre for Children)under the Welfare Minister’s Office.

1997 - The Italian Government’s first Piano Nazionale per l’Infanzia e l’Adolescenza (National Plan of Action for Chil-dren and Adolescents), based on the CRC, was adopted.

1997 - Law 285, Disposizioni per la promozione di diritti ed opportunità per l’infanzia e l’adolescenza (Provisions toPromote Rights and Opportunities for Children and Adolescents), was passed by the Italian Parliament as the prin-cipal legal instrument to implement the National Plan of Action for Children and the Convention on the Rights ofthe Child.

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younger generation a leading role in the process of thesocial and cultural integration of society. In it, the Ital-ian Government has taken over the principles andobjectives of the CRC, on the basis also of a UNICEFdocument Children’s Rights and Habitat - WorkingTowards Child Friendly Cities, developed with UNCHS/ Habitat and other partners in the context of Habitat II,the Second UN Conference on Human Settlements,held in Istanbul in 1996 (UNICEF 1996, Bartlett et al.,1999). It constitutes the most important and completeinternational reference framework for CFCs adopted todate in Italy, based on the commitments deriving fromthe CRC.

1.3 A law on children’s rights

and Sustainable Cities

for Girls and Boys

The Italian Government’s Plan of Action was princi-pally implemented through Law 285/97, entitled Pro-visions to Promote Rights and Opportunities for Chil-dren and Adolescents (Parlamento Italiano, 1997a).This law provides for a national fund for childhood

with the aim of financing local projects. It alsoencourages inter-ministerial initiatives and theupdating of laws in the areas, for instance, of pre-vention of juvenile crime, adoptions, or services forearly childhood. A Centro Nazionale di Documen-tazione e Analisi sull’Infanzia e l’Adolescenza (Nation-al Documentation and Research Centre on Childhoodand Adolescence) was set up at the Istituto degliInnocenti, Florence to monitor activities and trainstaff involved in the implementation of the law.

In parallel with this law, child-related themes werealso set at the centre of attention by the Ministry of theEnvironment, which in 1996 promoted the projectcalled Città sostenibili delle bambine e dei bambini(CSDBB) (Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys). Thisproject was not confined to encouraging new initia-tives, opportunities and structures for children, butaimed also to give an impetus to a new culture of gov-ernance of the city, to town planning based on animportant assumption: a city fit for children is fitter foreveryone. This new form of area planning requirespractical participation by children as citizens and thusas important members of the local community, and isoriented towards environmental sustainability.


The first Italian Government’s Action Plan for Children and Adolescents

The first National Plan of Action for Children and Adolescents (1997) combined two major facets of the CFCs, name-ly the new policies for children and the new policies for cities, creating a clear institutional framework for the exist-ing experience of Italian CFCs and also contemplating possible future developments. The innovative fundamentalsof the plan can be summarised as follows:● A new vision of childhood, emphasising recognition of children’s citizenship rights and the need for them to par-

ticipate in processes aimed at improving the quality of life for the younger generation and for the communitiesin which they live;

● A new vision of the social services, bringing out a need to plan them on a city scale and to make them flexibleand adaptable to the needs of children and adult citizens, as well as the development of team-work among tech-nical staff to improve the delivery systems through an interdisciplinary approach;

● A new role for local government, in particular for its capacity to give visibility to children on the political agenda,to facilitate participation by children and communities and to encourage complementarity between the centraland the local levels, in part by planning services at supra-municipal level (area plans);

● Systematic, planned collaboration with the third sector, as a key partner in developing a network capable of man-aging effective and innovative initiatives;

● A strategy of participation, requiring the active involvement of all individuals (children first and foremost), bothto guarantee the broadest support for policy choices and actions and, above all, to foster cultural developmentand to share responsibility for carrying out action; and

● A new vision of the city, seeing it as ‘friendly’ and sustainable, as a place for which the community can devel-op a sense of ownership, where social inclusion is combined with diversity and identity with the feeling ofbelonging.

Rooted on these principles, the Action Plan introduced a wide range of programme actions and a set of guidelinesfor improving the quality of life of children and adolescents in order to● Focus greater attention on children and adolescents ● Develop awareness of the living conditions of children and adolescents● Foster new forms of participation by children and adolescents ● Create a system of protection enabling children and adolescents to exercise their rights effectively● Oppose all forms of exploitation of children● Prevent hardship for children ● Create means of rehabilitating children in conflict with the law● Provide services and socialising opportunities for children and adolescents with disabilities● Ensure the social integration of foreign children● Carry out actions to support families ● Overcome development gaps between Italian sub-regions● Consolidate policies for sustainable development● Re-launch development cooperation efforts in favour of children’s rights

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For a relatively limited investment (ParlamentoItaliano, Law 8 October 1997, no. 344), this projectmanaged to initiate a broad range of activities, in col-laboration with the Istituto degli Innocenti (IDI) (fortechnical coordination), the Italian Committee forUNICEF (for holding a yearly international forum tofavour exchange of good practices among ChildFriendly Cities), the third sector (by setting up astanding committee of associations to develop neweducative and participatory strategies), academicand professional institutions and associations (todefine training activities).

A critical feature of the project is granting recogni-

tion as a Sustainable City for Girls and Boys, started in1998 by the Ministry of the Environment and awardedto Italian municipalities committed to improving activ-ities and opportunities for children, the urban ecology,area planning and transport, with the involvement ofthe local community and, especially, of children. Anintersectorial awarding commission has been estab-lished to rank the best performing Child FriendlyCities. The commission includes representatives fromthe Environment Ministry, the Social Affairs Depart-ment, the body representing municipal governmentsto the national government, the Italian Committee forUNICEF, the National Council of Architects, and sever-al third sector organisations engaged on issues relat-


The Principal Legal Instrument for CFCs in Italy: Law 285/97

From the organisational viewpoint, Law 285/97 led to the identification of municipal and supra-municipal districts(covering large urban areas and several smaller municipalities respectively), in which, through a process of partic-ipation and consultation between institutions and their social partners, local plans of action for children were drawnup. In this way, two important innovations were brought about:● Programming at district level, encouraging work in municipal and supra-municipal networks;● Collaboration between the government and non-government sectors.

The law had a decisive role in achieving the objectives laid down in the Italian Government’s Plan of Action for Chil-dren, by translating its guidelines into articles identifying and funding areas for action:● Creation of services in support of the parent-child relationship and able to tackle poverty and violence, as well as

measures offering an alternative to placing children in educational welfare institutions (Article 4).● Innovation and experimentation with regard to socio-educational services and facilities for early childhood (Arti-

cle 5).● Establishment of recreational and educational leisure-time facilities (Article 6).● Action to further the rights of children, such as the ‘measures to promote awareness of the rights of children and

adolescents’, and especially the ‘operations to facilitate the use of urban time and space’ and the ‘measures topromote participation by children and adolescents in the life of the local community, including its administrativeaspects’ (Article 7).

Law 285/97 thus proposes to initiate in Italian cities:● Actions to combat poverty, hardship, violence and institutionalisation of children.● Socio-educational efforts in favour of very young children and in support of the relationship between parents and

children.● Action in the area of recreation and leisure time.● Action to further the children’s rights to accessing urban spaces and participating.

On the one hand, this law lays special emphasis on protection, to be found in the measures to support parenthoodand tackle exclusion and hardship. On the other, it affirms and extends the cultural meaning of promoting child par-ticipation. Two articles in particular are important in the CFC context (Mittica, 2001).

Article 6 (Leisure-time recreational and educational services) proposes the creation of opportunities for childrenand adolescents to grow in accordance with their own potential. It supports children in developing personal opin-ions, the formation and growth of which require them to come together with their peers, under the guidance ofadults with specific educational skills. The terrain for such action is chiefly play and socialisation, since it is consid-ered that play-type socialising experience encourages participation and nurtures the capability to propose, decideand manage (Elbers, 1996). Article 6 thus seeks to encourage play among children and adolescents embodied inArticle 31 of the CRC, by creating a recreational context rich in stimuli for meeting and socialising.

Guidelines published in 1998 (Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 1998) propose the establishment of centres forplay and socialising and street initiatives. Through Article 6, Law 285/97 thus deals chiefly with encouraging the useof meeting places for intragenerational and intergenerational encounters, play and socialising. This is a programmearea already partly developed in Italy in the course of the 1980s and 1990s.

Article 7 (Positive actions to promote the rights of children and adolescents) contains themes that represent themost innovative aspects of the law. It provides for:● Actions to facilitate the use by children of their own time and of urban and natural spaces, to remove barriers to

mobility, and to enhance the enjoyment of environmental, cultural, social and sporting facilities and services.● Measures aimed at furthering knowledge of children’s and adolescents’ rights among adults, and in particular

among those working in the public services.● Measures aimed at encouraging participation by children and adolescents in the life of the local community,

including the local government.

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ing to children and the environment. Recognitioninvolves giving children priority in local policies, whichshould be coordinated and participatory, with particu-lar attention to upgrading spaces and resources.

Recognition – which entails an award of maximumEuro 360,000 - has become a significant factor in cre-ating Italian CFCs, in combination with funds generat-ed under Article 7 of Law 285/97. The Italian CFCs have,then, developed out of the incentives brought by theconvergence between children’s rights (Law 285/97)and the a CFC approach (the Sustainable Cities forGirls and Boys Project.) Since the complementaritybetween the two programmes was clear, it seemednatural to local administrators to use funds earmarkedunder Article 7 to finance CSDBB Project initiatives.

Nonetheless, Law 285/97 and the CSDBB pro-grammes also display significant differences con-cerning the policies directed at children and adoles-cents. While the former sees the priority for the CFCidea in the cultural area, in both changing and con-solidating existing services, the latter proposes anidea of the CFC marked primarily by environmentalchange. The two programmes are thus complemen-tary in placing the emphasis primarily on the culturalarea and on the environmental area respectively;together they have defined the activities that pro-mote the rights of children and adolescents in Italy.

Law 285/97 and the CSDBB Project have promotedand strengthened the role of the local authorities andsocial actors at community level, in the spirit of sub-

sidiarity that has marked the evolution of the CFCs.Indeed, in the years following approval of the Plan ofAction, many Italian Regional governments createdlegislation of their own, drafting regional action plansand setting up monitoring centres on children’s rights.

Alongside this political and operational structure, anational network was set up for monitoring andresearch on the outcome of the local policies. UNICEFInnocenti Research Centre, the Osservatorio Nazionaleper l’Infanzia (National Monitoring Centre for Child-hood, a creation of the National Council on Juveniles)and the Centro Nazionale di Documentazione e Analisisull’Infanzia e l’Adolescenza (Documentation andResearch Centre on Childhood and Adolescence), incollaboration with experts, university and regional andlocal monitoring centres, have created a network forexchange, study and research on children unprece-dented in Italy. The National Centre’s website (www.cit-tasostenibili.minori.it) makes available data on CFCprojects and events. Information on the internationalChild Friendly Cities Initiative is accessible on the web-site run by the International Secretariat for ChildFriendly Cities managed by UNICEF Innocenti ResearchCentre in Florence (www.childfriendlycities.org).

1.4 The new culture of childhood

This evolutionary process has been sustained by anew culture of childhood, which has evolved also asa result of widespread practices in action.


Guidelines Concerning Sustainable Cities

In 1998, the Ministry of the Environment published La Guida alle città sostenibili delle bambine e dei bambini(Guide to Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys), with the twofold aim of capitalising on and disseminating the expe-rience of cities engaging children in achieving urban sustainability and providing guidance to local authorities.

The guidance given by the experts, which became the cultural policy for the Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys,can be summarised under three headings:

1. Italian CFCs at the centre of attention for local governments● Rethinking the city as a whole through an intersectoral approach, not just through the work of the offices

traditionally dealing with child-related issues.● Adopting mechanisms to make inter-municipal networking and the government – non government rela-

tionship functional and effective; in this context, the mayor becomes the defender of children’s rights, fur-thering the implementation of a child-focussed municipal programme, which transcends the themes andcontingencies of his institutional mandate.

● Creating a municipal office assigned to addressing the theme of children and the city.

2. Retraining of municipal staff ● Training and linkage with other experiences to enhance the capacity to work with an integrated, intersec-

toral and participatory approach, combining town-planning and social development.● Documentation of regional, national and international experiences focussing on methodologies, processes

and planning models emerging from various projects.● Activating a standing intersectoral panel with the objective of distilling general principles from good prac-

tices and applying them to specific local problems.

3. Starting the process of participatory urban planning● Starting pilot initiatives based on child participation, in order to improve quality, respond to local needs and

employ traditionally untapped local resources.● Pursuing child participation as learning by doing method combining cognitive, manual and emotional

aspects, to guarantee the success of initiatives aimed at urban sustainability.● Establishing relationships with key partners involved in participatory planning, such as schools and associ-

ations involved in national campaigns (WWF, Arciragazzi, UISP, Legambiente, Democrazia in erba and so on)as well as colleges of architecture and planners’ associations specialised in participatory urban planning.

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Throughout the twentieth century, the culture ofchildhood prevalent among parents, educators,administrators and disseminated by experts referringto psychological and pedagogical theories focusedon the concepts of growth and development. Theseconcepts determined the basic meaning of the cul-ture of childhood and the way the child and children’srelations with the social environment were interpret-ed. Children were analysed on the basis of theircapacity. Various degrees of competence were identi-fied to set the bounds on what could be done withand for children and determine how educators andparents could relate to them.

According to this view, there are two fundamen-tal assumptions. On the one hand, since they lackvarious capabilities, are fragile and exposed to out-side dangers and sometimes to hardship, childrenneed education, protection and, in extreme cases,social assistance and psychological help. On theother, their competence, which is expressed particu-larly in group-play, requires that adults provide struc-tured opportunities for favouring children’s expres-

sion. Even today, the great bulk of initiatives aimed atchildren consists of actions and services based onthis view of childhood, involving primarily assis-tance, education and protection for children, and sec-ondarily play and facilities for socialising.

However, in the last ten years an important changein the culture of childhood has started to happen. Theprinciples affirmed in the CRC concerning citizenship,rights, and encouragement of participation by childrenhas been accompanied and supported by new lines ofinterpretation, redefining the meaning of children andtheir place in society (Baraldi, 2002; Chisholm et al.,1995; Corsaro, 1997; Driskell, 2002; James et al., 1998;James and Prout, 1998; Jenks, 1996; Maggioni andBaraldi, 2000.)

In this light, children are regarded as social actorscapable of supplying their own personal and activecontribution to social life and of claiming rights andmaking decisions of their own. The idea of a child asa developing person in a perspective looking to thefuture is largely replaced by that of the child as anactive person, a protagonist of social life in the pre-


The Meaning of the Guidelines

These guidelines offer a combination of three factors fundamental to defining a Sustainable City for Girls and Boys:● Political and management commitment by the local authorities in planning and implementing the programme;● The method of children’s participation in the planning process;● A focus on the city as an urban environment made of physical (natural and architectural), cultural (social rela-

tions and production of cultural initiatives) and institutional (relations with and among authorities) components.

The practical achievements of a Sustainable City for Girls and Boys are certified on the basis of a set of parame-ters. Recognition is granted by the Ministry of the Environment, supported by a technical committee that has devel-oped a model for monitoring and evaluating projects. These parameters concern three macro-areas – environ-mental, cultural and institutional -, each of which is further subdivided into:

Environmental● Reduction of atmospheric pollution● Reduction of acoustic and electromagnetic pollution● Eco-management of solid urban waste● The use and accessibility to spaces● Overcoming architectural barriers● Enhancing green spaces● Changing the relationship between human-beings and the environment● Encouraging mobility

Cultural● Encouraging the holding of cultural events, fairs, festivals and so on● Enhancing the historic and cultural sites and heritage of the city

Institutional● Commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child● Commitment to Agenda 21● Participation● Training● Child-friendly services in the areas of education, health and child / social services● Administrative organisation● Other cultural and institutional initiatives

Evaluation parameters concern each of these sub-areas. Such indicators provide a common framework, while leav-ing ample room to accommodate diverse initiatives and strategies at the local level.

Recognition is granted by assessing the integrated plan prepared by the city, which includes the three key areasdefining a Sustainable City for Girls and Boys:● Improvement to urban living conditions● Direct involvement of children in the initiatives proposed● Active commitment by the institutions to supporting the actions proposed

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sent. This enhances consideration for the persona ofthe child, regarded as important in itself for its capac-ity to construct meanings of the world and actautonomously. In Italy, it was the PsychopedagogicalDepartment of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricercheor CNR (National Research Council) that made thegreatest efforts to develop a standard methodology(Tonucci, 1996).

According to this approach, children are worthy ofattention because they suffer the greatest disadvan-tages from a general degradation of urban life, beingdeprived of possibilities for meeting and socialising.The city, originally designed to promote communitylife, is no longer full of people but of vehicles, whichhave changed its structure; the streets belong only tocars, while pedestrian routes have become down-right obstacle courses. In this situation children aresegregated from adults in closed places for protec-tive purposes, have no spaces for playing, cannot goout alone and are allowed only organised initiatives,leaving them very little time available for themselves.This creates a fundamental lack of experiencing inde-pendence, preventing children from benefiting fromthe risks and pleasures of abandoning the security ofthe home to overcome obstacles and to tackle andsolve conflicts.

The model put forward by the CNR proposes tochange the city by adopting the child as a parameter.The thinking is that children are not corruptible;enjoying no advantages from the city, they can makeradical and innovative proposals for changing it. Thismodel does not propose the improvement of specif-ic services for children but rather a general change tothe city, which should be designed to take account ofchildren’s needs. The fundamental idea is to involvechildren in changing society by encouraging theiractive participation in the change.

Many ideas expressed in this new culture of child-hood have been taken up by local administrators,planners and technical staff who have in these yearssought to put CFCs into practice in Italy. In the eyesof these innovators, the present culture of childhoodis inadequate, since it underestimates children’scapabilities and their participation, instead favouringan overprotective attitude in the family and the totalmanagement of their social life. Accusations are lev-elled against both the emotional shortcomings ofparents and the obsession with educating childrenthrough a system that asks only them to change.Adults do not listen, and there is no chance for chil-dren to express themselves. Consequently, children’ssocial lives are conditioned by an absence of mean-ingful relations with adults and by the attempt tomake them conform to models set by adults.

Local authorities, planners and others involvednote that the child is an active person, a citizen and asocial actor, endowed with abilities enabling his orher active participation in social life. The child is a cit-izen on an equal footing with adults and must there-fore be allowed the possibility of full, satisfactoryself-expression. There is thus a need for initiativesthat allow children to be heard and that give supportto their capability for expression. Emphasis is placed

particularly on encouraging children’s independencein relation to moving about the city, to their decisionsand choices, and to the possibility of planning andinfluencing decision-making processes. This vision ofactive citizenship for children, based on respect forand furtherance of their rights, directly involves themin choices affecting the overall community, nurturingtheir sense of citizenship, independence and respon-sibility towards society.

Gaining personal independence and participatingare thus two sides of the same coin; children shouldbe directly involved both in planning actions and incarrying them out. Under the impetus of this new cul-ture of childhood, encouraging social participationhas become the most common innovative factor atthe local level, both as an institutional principle andas a generalised practice to change the city.

1.5 The new culture of the city

Alongside this new culture of childhood, particularimportance was also given in the 1990s to a new cul-ture of the city, reflecting the transformation of town-planning practices and the development of the con-cept of sustainability in the relationship betweenhumans and the environment.

In the 1980s, in contrast to what was happening inthe rest of Europe, in Italy the question of citizens’participation in town planning had no great promi-nence on the political agenda. The participatoryapproach was accused of inefficiency and of beingmotivated by ideology, and town planning was givena driving role only for economic development. Afterthe end of the decade, however, there came a sharpreaction, deriving both from the growth of the envi-ronmentalist movement, advocating a new vision ofthe relationship between humans and the environ-ment, and from the influence of the new internation-al interest in urban planning and the environment.

In the international sphere, WHO Healthy CitiesProject, launched in 1988 (www.who.org), and stem-ming from a holistic vision of health, brought in var-ious principles and strategies for a new culture of thecity, including attention to urban ecology, preventionof diseases through better environmental quality, theimportance of self-help, intersectoral collaborationand community participation in planning and pro-gramme implementation. Shortly after, the Greenpaper on the Urban Environment (European Com-mission, 1990) brought an integrated view of plan-ning for urban and surrounding areas, with an eye tosustainable, democratic development.

In Barcelona in 1990, many of the world’s citiesadopted the Educative Cities Charter, putting togeth-er the basic principles underlying another importantfunction of the ‘new city’: education. In Rio deJaneiro in 1992, the Earth Summit, the UN Confer-ence on Environment and Development, launchedAgenda 21, a strategic instrument for drafting nation-al and local plans for sustainable urban develop-ment. In Aalborg, Denmark, in 1994, the EuropeanCharter on Local Agenda 21 (European Commission,


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1994) began a process that in the ensuing years rad-ically changed the approach to urban planning inEurope and particularly in Italy. With an eye to the‘new city’, strategic and management innovationswere brought about in harmony with those containedin the new policies for childhood: intersectoral andinter-institutional collaboration; integration of localand national level plans; and attention to the princi-ple of participation. The link between the new cultureof the city and the new culture of childhood wasstrengthened, since children were recognised asboth beneficiaries and actors in the urban transfor-mation processes started by Local Agenda 21.

In the context of the European economic pro-grammes, the Italian government, with the collabo-ration of the professional associations, business sec-tors and social partners, approved a series of urbanrenewal programmes imbued with the new culture ofthe city. In particular, a law on Neighbourhood Con-tracts (Contratti di quartiere, “Misure di razionaliz-zazione della finanza pubblica”, Parlamento Italiano,Law no. 662, 23 December 1996) and Policies forUrban Sustainability and Employment (“Disposizioniper lo sviluppo e la qualificazione degli interventi edell’occupazione in campo ambientale”, ParlamentoItaliano, Law 344, 8 October 1997) contain referencesand recommendations concerning not only the twopivots of the ‘new city’, citizen participation and eco-logical and economic sustainability, but also therights of children and adolescents and, in the second,the Child Friendly Cities themselves.

In the course of the 1990s, the interest of the Ital-ian government (supported by in particular the Min-istries of the Environment and of Education) in thetheme of the environment also favoured the spreadof initiatives with children, aimed at bringing aboutthe ‘new city’; especially in collaboration with thethird sector and schools, through incentives for train-ing, special programmes like the project Ragazzi2000 (Youth 2000), health education, the setting up ofstudy commissions and the funding of a network ofregional centres for environmental education.

These initiatives made use of new educationalmethodologies to convey knowledge, values andcapacities, typified by an approach that is:● active and participatory (learning by doing, caring,

planning, transforming);● connected to the neighbourhood (field trips, obser-

vations, mapping);● social (at the service of the community and coordi-

nated with local bodies).

An extensive strategy to train workers andschoolteachers and to link many school classes innetworks was also embarked on and has spreadknowledge, skills and interest at the national level.

The idea of the city developed in this process ismarked by an emphasis on the sustainability ofurban transformations and on changing relationshipsbetween individuals and the urban environment,with a view to creating greater respect for it and anawareness of interdependence, making not just thechildren but also administrators and experts benefi-ciaries of the educative process.

1.6 The relationship between the

child and the urban environment

The new vision of childhood and the new vision ofthe city come to a synthesis in the objective to pro-mote improved relations between children and theurban environment by building Child Friendly Cities.An institutional mechanism is provided by the con-vergence of the Sustainable Cities for Girls and BoysProject and in Article 7 of Law 285/97.

It is considered essential, to this end, to transformthe city’s physical spaces to fit children’s specialneeds and rights. The vision of ‘new cities’ impliesnot just physical improvements but, first and fore-most, different and better relations between peopleand the environment. In particular, relations betweenchildren and adults are important not just at the con-ceptualising and planning stages but in making thecity’s spaces live. Children have in fact been activelyinvolved in drawing up projects, and often in runningand looking after the spaces created. Attention to therelationship between the child and urban space is animportant special feature of the Italian situation.

In Italy, the rapid industrialisation and urbanisa-tion of the 1950s and 1960s had major repercussionsfor children, because of the ecological unsustainabil-ity of the city and its incompatibility with the funda-mental needs of childhood, such as safe mobility,independence, exploration of their surroundings, oractive participation in daily life.

Recognition of this situation was late by compari-son with the countries of northern Europe and NorthAmerica, where even in the 1960s research on theperceptions, needs and behaviour of urban childrenhad expanded, and the first projects in collaborationwith architects and town planners had begun (Cobb,1969; Dubos, 1969; Erikson, 1950; Goodman, 1956;Jacobs, 1961). This trend reached Italy only in the firsthalf of the 1960s, mostly thanks to efforts by educa-tors and architects, whereas interest by social scien-tists came only after another decade (Axia, 1986).

The first Italian experiments on the theme of rela-tions between the child and the city concerned struc-tured and institutional spaces (playing fields, recre-ation centres, school buildings and yards etc.), notthe city’s open spaces. The new vision of children andof the city began to emerge in a few projects carriedout in subsequent years (Nicholson and Lorenzo,1979). Not until 1986, though, did the institutions startto display interest in this theme, when the NationalCouncil of Juveniles commissioned an experimentalproject from the Arciragazzi association (a nationalyouth organisation) to be carried out in eight cities.This national project was the first in the area toobtain public funding, enabling contacts with andexposure to the most advanced thinking and experi-ence of other European countries.

A strong impetus came from the commitment byenvironmentalist associations in favour of ‘urbanchildren’, in the 1990s. From 1995 on, the WWF,Legambiente and the Unione Italiana Sport Popolarior UISP (Italian Sports Association) embarked onnational initiatives aimed at making citizens and local


CFC-GB2005 23-11-2005 14:43 Page 18

administrations aware of issues regarding the usabil-ity of streets and public spaces by the smaller citizensand, more generally, by all.

During the 1990s, the new culture of childhoodbecame the background for many practices aimed atchildren, with positive links being establishedbetween ideas promoted by experts, local experi-ences and the formulation of national cultural poli-cies. The first significant experiments, started withoutany substantial support from the institutions, some-times contributed considerably to raising the aware-ness on the part of local administrations. In time,however, the associations began to form collabora-tive relationships with local bodies and secure a bet-ter hearing from the central institutions. Likewise,some regions introduced similar innovations in theirown legislative apparatus or in inter-municipal andzonal coordination strategies.

In particular, in 1991 in Fano, the type of actioncalled Cities for Children was born, combining, inone overall innovative structure, various experi-ments often already tried in other countries, such asparticipatory planning (letting children plan urbanareas), children’s city councils (giving children a voicein collective decisions), and initiatives to encourageindependent mobility by children (enabling them toleave the house without being accompanied by anadult). Starting with an initial “Cities for Children”workshop in Fano in 1992, the first network of Citiesfor Children was created with support from theNational Research Council (Tonucci, 1995, 1996,2003). This network influenced the development ofmany subsequent local projects and the institutionalSustainable Cities for Girls and Boys network of theMinistry of the Environment.

In parallel, other experiments in participation bychildren and young people in the city’s life were start-ed, like the young people’s councils (at municipal,ward or district level). In 1995, the association

Democrazia in Erba (Budding Democracy) was set upwith the objective of bringing together and promot-ing the young people’s councils. Between 1995 and2004, the number of children’s and young people’scouncils rose from 30 to 580.

1.7 Guidelines

for changing the city

In 1998, the Ministry of the Environment publishedspecific guidelines concerning sustainable cities forchildren (Ministero dell’Ambiente, 1998), with thetwofold aim of capitalising on and disseminating theexperience of cities engaged in urban sustainabilityand giving guidance to local authorities and plannersintending to embark on such action.

These guidelines set out the main steps formunicipalities to create a CFC, in accordance withindications from a group of experts and from thegovernment that adopted these experts’ sugges-tions. As happened at the same period with theguidelines for applying Law 285/97, these providedsignificant guidance to Italian cities that were on thefront line of developing policies concerning child-hood and the environment.

The greatest effort in the Sustainable Cities for Girlsand Boys Project is directed towards furtheringactions to improve urban life, starting from theassumption that the economic and social develop-ment of recent decades has led to the degradation ofcities, transforming spaces for interaction into cross-roads for cars, gardens into abandoned areas andhistoric sections into empty neighbourhoods. Thisstarting point leads to the idea of re-planning the citywith an eye to improving it, thanks in part to the cre-ation of a new consciousness among the citizens.

The Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys pro-gramme thus intends to use institutional change andchildren’s participation to bring about significantplanning changes in the city. Consequently, withinthe three areas of action in a Sustainable City forGirls and Boys (environmental, cultural and institu-tional), it is physical and environmental planning thatconstitutes the fundamental objective, as evidencedby various types of action on the urban landscape:● Renewal and regeneration;● Integration of functions;● Reducing mobility constraints and decongesting

traffic;● Development and integration of public and private

transport policies (car pooling and car sharing) andarea policies (environmental capacity of streets, des-ignating spaces as meeting places, parking places);

● Safeguarding, capitalising on and expanding openspaces;

● Safeguarding and creating local ecosystems orgreen areas by protecting unbuilt areas and creat-ing natural habitats;

● Overcoming the idea that there exists only one typeof natural urban space, and favouring the coexis-tence of nature reserves, community gardens, mul-tifunctional spaces, street trees, green corridors, andthe greening of buildings.


Mayors Defenders of Children

The Italian Committee for UNICEF involves mayors inpromoting children’s rights. As city leaders, mayorsare ideally placed to ensure that the Convention onthe Rights of the Child is implemented in all of themunicipal communities. The mayor who becomes“defender of children” commits to implement childrights in his/her city and to hold regular municipalcouncil meetings were children can express theirviews and bring forward proposals for action.

Local schools participate in the project by assisting chil-dren in the preparation of the municipal council meet-ings and in promoting child participation in the com-munity they serve. Children’s proposals developed inschool are organised by themes, such as the environ-ment, leisure time, culture, international solidarity.

The decisions made by the municipal councils areshared with schools. Children and teachers monitorthe implementation of the activities agreed upon dur-ing the school year.

(Source: Italian Committee for UNICEF)

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1.8 The significance of a CFCin Italy

Several conclusions can be drawn as to the signifi-cance that a CFC in Italy has taken on in the lastdecade of the twentieth century and the beginning ofthe twenty-first.

First, the preconditions for arriving at a CFC comefrom a culture of childhood that stresses children’srights to citizenship, and a culture of the city as‘friendly’ and sustainable, as a place where the com-munity recognises itself and participates.

On the basis of these cultural preconditions, aCFC provides for:

● A strategy to promote participation, especially bychildren, in changing the living conditions of thecommunity of which they are part.

● A flexible approach to services and facilities,stressing their adaptability to citizens’ needs.

● An active role on the part of the local governmentby ensuring the visibility of children on the politicalagenda and encouraging intersectoral working onchild-relevant themes.

● Systematic collaboration among the various organ-isations active at local level, to achieve an opera-tional network and to provide the driving force toget the initiatives going.

These conditions favour the achievement of sev-eral goals set for children locally, such as overcomingsocial and cultural inequalities, creating a system ofsafeguards enabling children and adolescents toenjoy their rights, fighting the exploitation of chil-dren, acting to support families, preventing hardshipand juvenile delinquency, integrating foreign andchildren with disabilities, and practising develop-ment cooperation in favour of the rights of the child.

This means proposing a definition of a CFC thatcombines:● Action to oppose poverty and exclusion;● Socio-educational action in early childhood;● Action to favour opportunities for recreation,

leisure-time and play;● Action to promote rights to participation in city life,

with an eye to managing the urban eco-system.

Special emphasis on children’s right to participateconstitutes the most innovative component of the Ital-ian CFC Initiative. A precondition for a CFC is the activecommitment by the political and administrative institu-tions to improve urban living conditions and the man-agement of the urban eco-system through:● Furthering children’s participation; ● Mobilising resources and fostering networks with

local partners, such as schools, professional bod-ies, third sector organisations;

● Training and capacity building.


The new National Plan of Action for Children

In June 2003, the Italian Government approved thenew national plan of action for children, titled “Pianonazionale di azione e di interventi per la tutela deidiritti e lo sviluppo dei soggetti in età evolutiva, 2002-2004” (National Plan of Action for the Implementa-tion of Children’s Rights and Child Development,2002-2004.) The first section of the plan focuses onevaluating the results achieved under the previousplan period. A positive note stresses that the 2000-2002 period was rich with legislative and programmeinterventions in favour of children, adolescents andfamilies, especially thanks to the impetus given bythe law on children’s rights. In particular, actionaimed to make the environment sustainable for chil-dren and make the historical and artistic heritageaccessible to the young, in addition to the imple-mentation of Law 285/97, is deemed critical inimproving the condition of children living in Italiancities. In setting goals for the future, the plan focuseson expanding the child friendly cities initiative andawarding the best performing projects so that citiesimprove access to services and amenities by childrenand protect them from violence.

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2.1 From national policies

to local actions

Child Friendly Cities in Italy have been shaped by theinteraction between national policies promoted bythe Italian Government and local policies promotedby municipal governments. As discussed above, var-ious Italian cities were already active in furtheringeducational services for children in the 1970s and1980s in particular. From the early 1990s on, a grow-ing number of these have made efforts to innovate infavour of the new cultures of childhood and the city,moving from a policy of specific services aimed atchildren to a more all-round vision of the CFC.

The Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys Projectand Law 285/97 set the cultural, political and legisla-tive boundaries for this innovation. On the one hand,the funding allocated by Law 285/97 greatly encour-aged local planning and boosted the desire of localauthorities, flanked by equally motivated and deter-mined technical staff and experts. On the other, theprospect of recognition as a Sustainable City for Girlsand Boys, with the associated advantages in reputa-tion and financing, attracted the attention of manycities, both large and small.

These municipal initiatives produced a system ofmixed financing, matching the government funds onthe basis of Law 285/97 with local resources obtainedeither from the Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boysaward funding or other public investment. Thisarrangement opened the way to a huge increase ininitiatives and in the resources employed in them.

Law 285/97 adopted a system of co-financing, bywhich municipal administrations have to invest theirown resources in their projects in order to secure

government funds. Some local governments havealso begun activities with investments of their own inanticipation of government funds, or else supple-mented those funds partly for activities not coveredby them. This funding system accordingly provedeffective in encouraging major new initiatives.

Locally implemented initiatives in connectionwith the Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys Projectand Law 285/97 take the child as the central parame-ter for a city’s liveability. The child’s well-being is theprime factor leading to calls for changes in the insti-tutional organisation, environmental conditions andcultural circumstances. Sectoral actions are integrat-ed to meet the central objective of the child’s wellbeing. Even where all the areas of intervention areemphasised, the initiatives develop at diverse levelsof penetration and importance, according also to thesize of the cities.

Over and above these differences, it is possible tograsp the common innovative components of theItalian experience.

In the cultural area:● Encouraging social participation by children, par-

ticularly through planning workshops and Munici-pal Children’s Councils;

● Organising play and socialising centres for childrenand adolescents;

● Encouraging socialising by children and adoles-cents at the community level;

● Raising the awareness of citizens, especially children.

In the institutional area:● The new system of governance for the cities;● Creation of networks;● Training of technical staff.

21Innovations and Efforts in Building CitiesFriendly to Children

Innocenti Research Centre

2INNOVATIONS AND EFFORTS INBUILDING CITIES FRIENDLY TO CHILDREN

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In the environmental area:● Enhancement of the interaction between children

and the environment;● Furthering urban mobility;● Plans for traffic regulation and pollution reduction;● Enhancement of green spaces and the usability of

urban spaces;● Eco-management of refuse;● To a lesser extent, removal of architectural barriers.

2.2 Encouraging participation

by children

The most important and innovative component inItalian CFC initiatives lies in the promotion of partici-pation by children. It marks a change that is bothinstitutional and cultural (Hart, 1992, 1997; Lans-down, 2001; Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Tuteladel Territorio, 2001, 2003). Social participation may bedefined as important, prominent action in a publicsituation, that is, a situation that is meaningful for thewhole community (local community, city or societyas a whole). Allotting competence and public visibili-ty by children are the two basic features of what isdefined as child participation.

The results of recent research on cities thatreceived co-financing on the basis of Article 7 of Law285/97 (Baraldi, 2001) bring out the main features ofencouraging participation by children in Italy today.This takes two basic forms. The first, participation indecisions, means significant, prominent actionthrough which children and adolescents are listened toand contribute to relevant decision-making processes,in public contexts like children’s councils, youth con-sultations or discussion forums. The second, participa-tion in planning, means significant, prominent actionthrough which children and adolescents can developprojects in public forums like planning groups, cre-ative workshops or cultural groups (musical, artistic)with the objective of changing the environment.

Encouraging participation in decisions emphasisesthe importance of involving children in the social con-struction of collective norms, that is, policies for thecommunity and the enjoyment of democratic rights.Encouraging participation in planning emphasises theimportance of involving children in open and democ-

ratic fashion in planning solutions for the community’sproblems as well as their own. In both senses, encour-aging participation also means encouraging children’spersonal autonomy in developing and implementingprojects or making collective choices.

In Italian CFCs, the active and autonomous partici-pation of children in choices (participation in decisions)and in projects (participation in planning) is consideredfundamental for institutional, environmental and cul-tural change. The social participation of children isbelieved to let planning function more efficiently, sothat the city is administered more functionally withrespect for all the citizens. Encouraging participation inplanning and decisions develops the idea of the city asan open system granting all its citizens, first and fore-most children, visibility and legitimacy.

Projects to encourage social participation are gen-erally aimed at the age group from 9 to 14, eventhough participatory planning sometimes alsoinvolves smaller children. The most typical aspect ofthese projects is the setting up of workshops, mean-ing physical spaces where children come togetherand create projects and ideas. The workshops chieflyfocus on participatory planning and the young peo-ple’s councils. The workshop also sometimesbecomes the basis for overall planning in the CFC,the city itself being interpreted as a huge workshopfor ideas and projects.

The workshop is an important organisational dri-ving factor, since it offers visibility and catalyses activ-ities and ideas. Generally, a workshop combinesencouraging participation and educating the children,making it a hub for integrating a variety of practicesintended together to guarantee learning, interest incommunity life and active and creative participation.

2.2.1 Children’s and young people’s councils

Children’s and young people’s town or city councilsare the favoured instruments for promoting chil-dren’s participation in decisions. In 1991 Bellunobecame the first provincial capital in Italy to set up amunicipal council open to the younger generation.Fano brought in a children’s town council in 1992, fol-lowed by Pesaro which inaugurated ward councils in1994. Many other municipalities have created similarstructures since 1996.

This method of action gives children and youngpeople a mouthpiece within the local administrationfor their aspirations and requests as citizens, in arelationship of collaboration and co-responsibilitywith the institutions. These initiatives therefore meetwith great interest from local governments, for whichthis is a meaningful way to involve children and cre-ate a new civic conscience in the city. Children’scouncils become instigators of child friendly initia-tives and are involved in encouraging participatoryplanning, plans for mobility, civic and environmentaleducation workshops and so on.

The primary objective of the councils is to involvethe children in the administration of the city, withadequate recognition of their evolving capacities tosuggest solutions to make it more liveable. Second-ly, there is an educational objective, offered by the

22 Innovations and Efforts in Building CitiesFriendly to Children


Fostering Child Participation

At Novellara, a participation scale is used, with at oneend a level of non-participation that corresponds todenial of the person of the child (compulsion, suffer-ing, frustration, sense of uselessness), in the middlea level of silence and dependency of the person (lackof justification for the assigning of tasks, acceptingdirection by others), and at the other end affirmationof the person (importance of the action for the per-son, assumption of responsibility, resources avail-able, amusement, involvement, happiness, sense ofimportance). Participation here means affirming theperson, just as lack of participation means negationof the person, and forcing participation means reduc-ing the person to silence or dependency.

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chance to come closer to the institutions, thus devel-oping a civic sense of belonging to the community,as well as respect for common values and heritage.At both levels, children are given a real channel forexercising their rights.

2.2.2 Participatory planning workshops

The most widespread type of workshop furtheringsocial participation by children is connected with par-ticipatory town planning, by far the commonestmode of participatory planning. This type of work-shop was opened for the first time in 1993 in Fano,the city that has most pursued this type of initiative.

More recently there have been many other experi-ences, proliferating in Italy and sometimes becominga dominant feature of overall CFC activity, partlybecause of the favourable reception they have had inschools, with the support of the Ministry of Education.

Through these workshops the children, in collabo-ration with architects, engineers and planners, imag-ine and restructure areas of the city in accordance withtheir needs and their aesthetic taste. The children areacknowledged to have the ability to work out theirown needs and requirements by making use of theirexpressive creativity and with an eye to changing theirenvironment. The basic idea is that the freshness oftheir ideas, for all the difficulties of implementationand feasibility, enables adequate management of thespaces with special attention to their function as

places to meet and socialise. In this way, a signal isalso sent to the children that the city should respondto their needs and be enjoyable for them, and shouldbe redesigned through listening directly to them.

In the last decade, the activities of the participato-ry planning workshops have developed particularlyin the environmental area through actions on theurban fabric. In part this has been due to use of theLocal Agenda 21, which is intended to bring the chil-dren closer to environmental themes, familiarisethem with the relevant technical terminology and letthem experience a didactic and practical approachbased on group work and the creative search forshared solutions.

Participatory planning has also been used forencouraging children’s mobility, for the upgrading ofpublic spaces (in particular green spaces like parksand school gardens) and, to a lesser extent, for theeco-management of urban waste.

A particularly widespread kind of participatoryplanning has involved urban micro-spaces (e.g.,squares, courtyards, sidewalks, historic centres, resi-dential areas) or natural areas (arranging parks, fit-ting out municipal green spaces or ones nearschools). The participatory planning workshops havechiefly focused on refurbishing green spaces, such astown parks, disused areas and especially school play-grounds, which are the areas most frequently pro-posed by children for action. By contrast, participato-ry planning is used more sporadically for reducingdifferent kinds of pollution, recycling consumergoods and eliminating architectural barriers.

2.2.3 Encouraging mobility

Encouraging children’s freedom of movement, oftencombined with participatory planning, is one impor-



Children’s and Young People’s Councils

One particularly significant children’s town council isin Novellara. Called La Tavola Rotonda (The RoundTable), it is the municipality’s most important initia-tive, linking up ninety per cent of the other initiatives.With help from an adult facilitator, it brings togetherboys and girls from the fourth through the eighthgrades, and for some aspects also adolescents fromupper-middle schools. It is subdivided into five sub-groups dealing with various topics (environment,solidarity, sport, leisure and school); it has organisedenvironmental, cultural and solidarity initiatives andhas been involved in town planning. The participationof adolescents has led to creation of the Young Peo-ple’s Forum (14-18 years), with the same objectivesas the Round Table.

In Fano, the Children’s Council annually submitsnumerous requests to the city’s Municipal Council.The Children’s Council meets at the headquarters ofthe Laboratorio Città dei bambini (Workshop for theChildren’s City), instigated by the Municipality, todevelop proposals and requests for making the city abetter place to live. The latter have covered bothsome environmental areas and recreational activi-ties: closing certain streets to traffic, freer access tosports installations and equipment, use of squaresand condominium areas as places to play, creatingplay areas, possible access to a city newsletter,organising intergenerational workshops, the use tobe made of the funds from the CSDBB awardobtained by the city, and developing the Carta delpedone (Pedestrians’ Charter).

The Fano Workshop

The Fano participatory project workshop is one of themost significant examples of participatory planning.In consultation with outside practitioners (a plannerand an architect), it involves a great number of ele-mentary and lower-middle school classes, which areassigned a specific theme each year to do withchange in particular areas of the city: squares andmonuments, green spaces, traffic, waste manage-ment, school, and spaces for safe and free play. Theworkshop has thus covered the whole spectrum ofenvironmental actions, including the eco-manage-ment of urban waste. Among projects carried out orat an implementation stage, one could mention therestructuring of a cottage to convert it for play andeducational uses for children, building of a cyclepath, designing of a fountain in a courtyard, creationof a sea-view point in a park, and the rehabilitation ofan abandoned green area. Further, a group of formerchild councillors, coordinated by an architect, hasmet to develop and propose ideas on the new citymaster plan, analysing the problems and theresources and making suggestions and proposalsfrom a child perspective.

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tant aspect of CFC activity in Italy. The idea underly-ing this type of initiative is that the street is to beunderstood as a place for everyone and not just forcars, as is the case today in cities.

One of the aspects considered most negatively inrelation to children’s condition in contemporary soci-ety is the hyper-organisation of children’s time as afunction of adults’ needs. In Italian elementaryschools, an remarkably low percentage of children(around 10 per cent) go to school on their own; fewleave home without their parents, and practicallynone use public services independently (Horelli,2001). Research confirms that children live in isola-tion, almost exclusively in closed, protected places,without being able to move freely about the city. Thissituation is based primarily on the fears aroused inparents by traffic conditions and by the potentialpresence of threatening strangers.

Furthering children’s freedom of movement aspedestrians or as users of public services meanschanging living conditions in the city, starting withroad patterns and traffic regulations, but coveringalso community life and socialising enriched by inter-active intergenerational dynamics.

The endeavour to change the city comes aboutthrough encouraging a participatory process. Thechildren are invited to be citizens actively movingabout the city spaces, occupying them, playing in thesquares, walking about the streets, constraining thecity to adapt to their being there and moving around.These projects are intended to offer the children a dif-ferent perception of the city also as a result of theeffects of awareness campaigns on adults. Shop-keepers, drivers, police and elderly volunteers are infact invited to adopt friendly, caring attitudes towardsthe children through specific campaigns like theCommercianti amici delle bambine e dei bambini(Child-friendly Shopkeepers) or Negozi SOS siamoamici dei bambini (SOS - Child-friendly Shops).

2.3 Governance of the city

Encouraging child participation is regarded as a deci-sive instrument for reaching the primary objective of



Participatory Planning Workshops

In Turin, the participatory planning workshops focuson upgrading public green spaces and on mobility.There are various projects: restructuring schoolyards; participatory planning to transform the urbansituation, by rehabilitating courtyards, disused indus-trial areas, green spaces of schools and neighbour-hoods (transforming a stretch of road; planning asquare and restoring it); projects for safe routes inthree wards; the national competition La scuola pro-getta la città (The school plans the city).

In Ferrara, in the school year 2000/01 the workinggroup Spazi Urbani Infanzia (Cityscapes for Chil-dren)’ has worked on three main initiatives:

Ferrara: una scuola un giardino (Ferrara: A School, aGarden) is a two-year project with the objective ofstudying and planning how to rehabilitate, beautifyand revitalise the areas around the schools. Themethod is based on having the children photographand map the area, followed by an educative, didacticcourse with teachers, then presentation of the area toexperts and practitioners for analysis and evaluationof the proposal in a joint project. Finally, the childrenpresent the project to parents and local inhabitantsfor them to contribute ideas and proposals for col-laboration.

Architetti in erba (Budding Architects) aims at redis-covering the value of architecture, involving childrenthrough workshops to encourage them to observearchitecture and think about its meaning and theinfluence it has on everyone’s life.

Ci giochiamo la città (Let’s Play Cities!) is a researchcampaign aimed at creating safe routes from home toschool, as an introduction to the A scuola ci andiamoda soli (We can go to school by ourselves) initiative.

Agenda 21 Initiatives

In Novellara, children helped with complete mappingof the city using lichens as bio-indicators of air qual-ity, with subsequent development of plans fo0raction to improve the situation. The Ferrara SchoolsAgenda provided for the collection of information onseveral fronts (air, noise, mobility), responding to theobjective of acknowledging the children’s right to ‘getto know their own environment and form an opinionof their own, express it freely, and be involved indecisions concerning resources and development’.

In Modena, carrying out the Conoscere l’Agenda 21(Getting to know Agenda 21) project furthers, in oper-ational terms, an environmental assessment of thecontext in which the school functions, the quality ofrelationships and the educational offerings it pre-sents. There follow a ‘school audit’ stage, a secondstage of discussing problems and possible solutionsand a third stage of defining an action plan. In Fano,the members of the Children’s Council, along withpupils of an elementary school and the members ofthe student assembly of a middle school, embarkedon drafting a Local Agenda 21.

Encouraging Freedom of Movement

Experiments in encouraging freedom to movebetween home and school are generally associatedwith participatory planning aimed at identifying saferoutes. This type of initiative involves the collabora-tion of both the technical services of the municipalityand the schools, associations of voluntary workers orelderly persons, local police, parents, professionalassociations among others. At Fano and Pesaro, par-ticipatory planning activities were carried out to studythe most functional routes between home and schooland to start projects to restructure road patterns andchange traffic regulations (which have since beenimplemented). At Pesaro, through ward meetingsand regularly monitoring, the initiative has had greatsuccess, with broad involvement of teachers, parentsand children.

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the CFCs in Italy: changing the city in the direction ofenvironmental sustainability for all, and childrenfirst. At the same time, both national and local poli-cies indicate that this change must necessarily beaccompanied by an institutional shift, since only ifthat is achieved can the necessary administrativesupport be supplied.

2.3.1 Transforming local administrations

In the context of the Italian CFCs, particular impor-tance is attached to transformations within themunicipal administration. A city intending to take onthe cultural challenge of rethinking itself from thechild’s viewpoint must implement institutionalchanges in its administration.

First, it is important to amend the town charter toincorporate the principles of the Convention on theRights of the Child, which requires a convergence ofviews on the municipal council.

The adoption of the Convention on the Right of theChild in the Town Charter acknowledges the impor-tance granted to measures explicitly recognising chil-dren’s rights. Further, a significant action includes thesetting up of coordination and working groups withinthe administration. In particular, the Italian projects arebringing in a new model of administrative organisa-tion of an interdepartmental and intersectoral nature.In some cases this is a necessity, since the activity sec-

tors that will be interacting in planning the variousactions are numerous: social services, school build-ings, educational services, culture, youth policies,environment, planning, and solidarity. At times, how-ever, intersectoral working has more to do withbureaucratic necessities than with the pursuit of a gen-uine common purpose. Initiating effective communi-cation between various offices and individuals can,however, always be considered a significant innova-tive factor.

2.3.2 Networks

Intersectoral working within the local government isaccompanied by another important institutionalchange: the setting up of local organisational andmanagement networks, bringing in schools and thirdsector organisations with cultural or social objectives.

At local level, instances of collaboration betweenschools and the third sector are almost universal.Such partners act normally as co-promoters of theactivities. These have been highly meaningful rela-tionships, enabling the practical carrying out of pro-jects it would hardly ever have been possible toaccomplish exclusively with the staff and organisa-tional resources of the local authority.

The local networks are important where, as in thecases of the participatory projects and children’s coun-cils, the willingness of the schools and associations tojoin the projects is fundamental. Often the activities arerun by third sector associations or social cooperatives,which supplement the public authority with technicaland organisational resources. Even though there aresome important examples of internally well-equippedpublic bodies, the tendency is towards negotiateddecentralisation of the running of the activities.

Inter-institutional networks have been activatednot only at the local level but also at the national andinternational levels, where they have taken the formof conventions among various local authorities, orhave joined international charters or programmes,



Coordination

The Belluno Città dei Bambini (Belluno as a Children’sCity) project group is structured so as to converge alldepartments of the municipal administration. Period-ic meetings are held to plan and monitor activitiesand work out the best system of coordination amongthe various line departments to carry out the numer-ous activities with a holistic approach. Ferrara, as wellas having set up the Ufficio Città Bambina (Child CityOffice), makes use of the assistance of three workinggroups: Spazi Urbani Infanzia (Cityscapes for Chil-dren), bringing together the municipal offices forplanning, the environment and culture, the CentroIdea (Ideas Centre), architects and architecture teach-ers, and other associations; Cultura ed Infanzia (Cul-ture and Children), bringing together the Centro diDidattica Culturale (Centre for Cultural Education),the Ufficio Cinema (Cinema Office) and the Casa delleArti (House of the Arts); Diritti ed Infanzia (Rights andChildren), bringing together UNICEF, schools, andthird sector organisations such as Arciragazzi, Legam-biente and Amnesty International.

Recognition in the municipal charter

The Municipality of Novellara has formally recog-nised the Young People’s Town Council as one of itsinstitutional bodies, which ‘while maintaining thespirit of play, administers part of the budget, and isconsulted in drawing up the Municipal Budget’. Thisofficial status has favoured interaction with the adultMunicipal Council, which can listen to the children onthe council directly. Here is the full text of Article 17of the Novellara town charter:

The Municipality hereby adopts Article 12 of the UNConvention on the Rights of the Child, worded as fol-lows: ‘States Parties shall assure to the child who iscapable of forming his or her own views the right toexpress those views freely in all matters affecting thechild, the views of the child being given due weightin accordance with the age and maturity of the child.For this purpose, the child shall in particular be pro-vided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial andadministrative proceedings affecting the child, eitherdirectly, or through a representative or an appropri-ate body, in a manner consistent with the proceduralrules of national law.’ The Municipality recognises theboys and girls of today as the citizens of today andtomorrow, endowed with needs, capacities andresources, and assures them of free expression oftheir views, giving them due weight in accordancewith their age and maturity. The Municipality recog-nises the rights of children to freedom of peaceableassembly and their entitlement to institute the YoungPeople’s Town Council called Tavola Rotonda (roundtable), as an expression of active civic education andof direct democratic participation.

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like the Aalborg Charter, the Agenda 21 commit-ments, the networks of Città Educative (EducationalCities) and Healthy Cities, or the European Commis-sion LIFE-Environment programme.

Often the various networks activated at nationaland international levels support each other in theirpurposes and share activities, even if each of themfocuses on particular priorities and has organisation-al characteristics of its own.

The network that has had most directly opera-tional effect on developing CFC projects in Italy isCittà dei Bambini (Cities for Children), promoted andcoordinated by the National Research Council, whichhas on the one hand sought to create training oppor-tunities and to provide practical support, and on theother to coordinate projects and monitor theirprogress. This network has promoted workshops inmany Italian cities, thus guiding activities in a visibleand systematic fashion.

2.3.3 Training and capacity building

The broad spectrum of innovative activities, and theparticipation of a large number of individual figures

and bodies in changing the city, make capacity build-ing a vital aspect for a CFC.

The training and refresher courses on offer derivefrom an awareness that the preparation and profes-sionalism of the persons instigating, organising andrunning operations decisively affect the initiatives andmake a CFC more effective. It appears particularlyimportant that training should not be directed at a fewrecipients only, but should involve people at severaloperational levels and in several sectors, since thehigh degree of intersectoral collaboration involved inthese activities calls for shared objectives and sharedworking methods. The content of training deemed rel-evant for a CFC concerns many areas, which creates acomplicated structure of requirements. Given itsstrategic importance, training is one of the practicesthat have become an assessment parameter forCSDBB recognition.

On the basis of these considerations, the mainnational bodies that have supported these processesof innovation (for istance, the National ResearchCouncil and Democrazia in Erba) leave offered train-ing modules to municipalities and third sector orga-nizations that are interested. In other cases, traininghas come about locally, either by reactivating exist-ing contacts with trainers and experts, or by relyingon the reputation of experts and training institutions.

2.4 Encouraging servicesand facilities for playand socialising

Encouraging participation by children constitutes themost innovative part of the CFC initiatives in Italy andhas been strongly encouraged, thanks to awardsfrom the Ministry of the Environment, local contribu-tions and, above all, funding under Law 285/97.

However, taking as a reference the fundingrequests presented by local authorities in accordance



International Networks

One city particularly involved in international networksis Turin. The city is in fact a member of many nationaland international charters or programmes: EducationalCities, Europolis 2000, Urbanet (the European UrbanEducation Network), Urban II, Diedec (DevelopingCross-cultural Education through Cooperation), Clara(Concerted Local Action to Raise Achievement), Cittàper i Diritti Umani (Cities for Human Rights), Rete Pina-coteche Arte Ragazzi (Youth Art Gallery Network), Cives,Coordinamento Italiano Video e Scuola (Italian Videoand School Coordination).

Capacity Building by the National Research Council

The training project proposed by the CNR aims tocombine various aspects and different actors in anoverall plan. Training in fact applies to: a) Politicians, regarded as the first and most impor-tant addressees, in order to raise their awareness ofthe meaning of the initiatives(b) Municipal technical staff, regarded as the chiefimplementers and change-makers(c) Teachers and other educators involved, regardedas primary movers in initiatives that often involveschools, or at any rate also take place outside thedirect sphere of action of the municipality(d) Parents too for specific aspects, since their sup-port is considered critical in carrying out initiativesintended to encourage children’s autonomy andactive participation

The local community is consulted through its institu-tional representatives (local authorities, teachers,technical staff), the families and other partiesinvolved in training courses.

Local Networks

One particularly broad and significant application ofthe methodology of network building is in Ferrara.Here the Città Bambina (the whole set of workshopscoming under the Sustainable Cities for Girls andBoys programme) is operationally connected with:• Various associations engaged in running and carry-

ing out the activities (UISP, ACLI, Arciragazzi).• The Centro Idea and Casa Lea, which run environ-

mental education and awareness programmes in col-laboration with environmental cooperatives andassociations.

• The Casa delle Arti for cultural programmes (museumeducation, also in collaboration with social coopera-tives).

• The municipal garbage collection company whichdoes environmental education.

• The municipal youth service and the local health ser-vice.

• The schools collaborating on the children’s towncouncil.

• The ‘safe routes’ programme and participatoryplanning.

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with the provisions of Law 285/97, it is clear that, ascompared to other programme areas, children’s par-ticipation has been accorded low priority across theboard. A government report published in 2000 on thecondition of children and adolescents (Presidenza delConsiglio dei Ministri, 2000) reveals that only 11.4 percent of the projects for which funding was grantedcontained measures of this type. Law 285/97 hasbeen used primarily for financing traditional facilitiesfor children, especially for protection against hard-ship (social and health services) and for education(crèches and nursery schools). To a lesser extent ithas been used to promote participation, play facili-ties and socialising. In the context of CFCs, priorityhas thus been given to encouraging new services orrenewing old ones.

In the new vision, however, of the relationshipbetween the city and the child, the traditional educa-tional, well-being and health services have beenheavily criticised. The service or facility is often con-sidered to be a constraint and insufficiently respectfulof the children, bringing about a form of protectionthat creates dependency and is a barrier to indepen-dence. In this light, it is considered necessary toreview the meaning of the facilities for children inorder to enhance their capacity to encourage chil-dren’s participation. This new conception of facilitiesrequires an equally new conception of the publicadministration, which is able to promote participatoryplanning and governance systems open to children.This new “post-institutional vision” leads towards thecreation of flexible and independent opportunities forutilising children’s time and activities, through com-munity planning coordinated at the municipal level.

Among the most significant innovative services,promoted above all on the basis of Article 6 of Law285/97, are those dealing with socialising: gamelibraries, play centres, and youth centres for adoles-cents (Baraldi, 2001). These spatially delimited facili-ties monitored by competent adults treat participa-tion by children and adolescents as opportunities todevelop their personalities, through play and enter-tainment, in organised, guided situations. Theirmeaning is twofold: on the one hand, to widen anddifferentiate play and socialising facilities in the citysupplementing or supporting initiatives alreadybeing instigated locally; on the other, to create a cli-

mate of meaningful relations within the urban com-munity by encouraging opportunities for intragener-ational and intergenerational contacts.

Children’s participation has been encouragedalong with their independence in a protected envi-ronment. This is in accordance with the culture andlogic underlying CFCs, whereby protection is reason-able only where it guarantees the children’s indepen-dence and ensures their active participation.

2.4.1 Facilities for children’s play and socialising

Particular attention has been paid to services andfacilities for children that involve adults as well, withan eye especially to greater support in parent-childrelations.

The play centres directly involve parents and aredesigned as alternatives to crèches. The play centresare intended to promote interpersonal communica-tion between parents and children in early childhood,based on the idea that the family ought to encouragechildren’s autonomy. The parents are present duringthe activities and the educators intervene as little aspossible and only to remind the parents about theirchildren’s independence, interpreting their role asbeing to facilitate communication while respectingthe expression of family ties.

The game libraries (ludoteche) are aimed at muchbroader age ranges than the play centres. Similarly,play is used as an instrument to encourage socialis-ing among the children and sometimes the parentstoo. In the game libraries play may serve two pur-poses: a) to stimulate interpersonal relationshipsamong the children encouraging their right to enjoy-ment, and b) to support children’s development andgrowth. In general, the encouragement of play activ-ities encounters few problems, partly because play isfamiliar and compatible with the traditionally heldview of childhood.

Alongside the play centres and game libraries,other services are also offered with increasing fre-quency, like artistic, theatrical and cinematographicevents, aimed at encouraging the children’s andyoung people’s self-expression (for instance, work-shops for videos produced by the children). There arealso growing numbers of libraries, audio-visuallibraries, magazine rooms, video libraries and multi-use centres. Mention should also be made of thegrowth of after-school services, intended as one seg-ment in an integrated educative system. Workshopsof various types are run on the premises (sport, the-atre, music, dance therapy, music therapy, comicstrips, computing, play, editing magazines, carpen-try, mosaics, ceramics). Many of these services areprovided in collaboration with the third sector.

2.4.2 Socialising centres for adolescents

Socialising services constitute the only type of actionthat massively involves adolescents. The youth cen-tres are in fact the most important type of facilityaimed at adolescents in Italy, even if they are notequally widespread everywhere.

Socialising by adolescents is encouraged particu-



Participation and Protection

In the municipality of Ostuni, it is considered essentialto direct attention and action primarily at the placeswhere social exclusion may be greatest, especially inschool, where children at risk are present. As a conse-quence of this approach, the Laboratorio Città deiRagazzi (Young People’s City Workshop) also makes itpossible to interact daily with young people from fam-ilies manifestly at risk, allegedly reducing the level ofpetty crime to the point that complaints against adoles-cents almost disappear. The theme of protection fromhardship is incorporated in the range of policies aimedat preventing exclusion. Starting from the excludedsocial groups, the whole city has been involved inactions aimed to encourage child participation.

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larly in organised forms (i.e., led by group leaders oreducators), on the principle that it can be productiveonly under the vigilant eye of competent adults witheducational roles. Intra-generational encountersbetween adolescents are thus regarded as importantonly if they are subordinated to an intergenerationalencounter, following a model that plainly has its ori-gin in the school.

Frequently, the encouragement of socialising issupplemented in these centres by individual servicesand facilities, such as providing information, coursesand workshops, specialist meetings (debates, confer-ences), making and listening to music or using multi-media equipment. The intention of the planners isthat the individual services and facilities shouldattract the adolescents and motivate them to join inand keep in contact with the staff. Accordingly, theactivities on offer are creative (music, video produc-tion, visual arts, cinema), multimedia (use of com-puters, audio-visual material) and also sometimesenvironment-related. For pre-adolescents, the ser-vices available are mainly of the guidance-type(school, work) or educational support.

The combination of encouraging socialising andproviding individual services gives rise to two preva-lent models of youth centre for adolescents (Baraldiand Ramella, 1999):

1. The services centre, where the individual servicesand facilities constitute an important component,combined with organised socialising

2.The all-round integrated centre, which embracesmany and varied activities with an aim to organisesocialising according to an education pattern.

The objectives of the great majority of the centresfor adolescents consist explicitly in encouraging edu-

cation activities that favour cognitive and relationalgrowth, so as to bring out the potential and the criticalsense of the adolescents. Play and socialising areturned into an opportunity for growth. This is often theaim towards which activities such as reading, musical,artistic and theatrical workshops, courses favouringexpression (guitar, computer, dance), socialising activ-ities (musical shows, competitions, parties) are direct-ed, making adolescents responsible for managingtheir own programmes and increasing their sense ofsolidarity. All this is treated as an opportunity to buildup a relationship with significant adults, making use ofeducational methodologies.

In the intention of planners, these centres are alsomeant to help prevent adolescent troubles, a much-feared phenomenon in Italian society. However,attention generally focuses primarily on promotingrights and hence on creating positive conditions foradolescents to meet each other. Consequently, activ-ities directly related to problems, like counselling sta-tions or psychological treatment, are not particularlyfrequent. When they are offered, especially for pre-adolescents, the potential users may find it hard tounderstand what they are about and thus avoid thecentres so as not to be labelled as having problems.

Given their prevailing approach, the centresrarely use the methodology of self-management orparticipation in management choices, which wouldemphasise the adolescents’ participation muchmore. In the eyes of administrators and planners,self-management seems unlikely to be successfulbecause there is no special confidence in the adoles-cents’ competence and motivation, so that the adultssometimes fear risky and problem-related behaviour.Participation by adolescents is limited compared withthat of younger age groups, and is to be found morein cases where they are involved in highly motivatedsmall groups. The upshot is that there is but limitedexperience of semi-self-management or of participa-tion in administrative choices by adolescents.

The self-run or partly self-run centres depend onfacilitators who try not to interfere in interpersonalrelations among the adolescents, but offer them-selves as promoters available to help them to



Objectives of Socialising Centres for Adolescents

In the wording of one project for a youth centre, thegeneral aim is to ‘create a place suited for meeting,for recreation, for play activities, with the objective ofencouraging mutual exchange and direct involve-ment in meaningful social dynamics and roles, withan eye to a rediscovery of social identity and humanvalues, towards the full development of a civil andsocial consciousness, thus creating a new form ofsociality, through artistic, play and sporting activity’.

Another project proposes ambitious objectives:- Increasing a sense of individual responsibility- Improving educational and cultural levels- Work orientation- Individual and collective socialising- Development of participation and self-management- Furthering the relationship between young people

and the institutions- Primary prevention of drug addiction and alco-

holism

These objectives are to be attained through a consid-erable range of actions, such as under group leaders,workshops (photography, painting, drama, languageand music), self-managed, informative, educative(reading, health, first aid) activities.

Encouraging Socialising in the Centres

Three centres (Campogalliano, Carpi and Soliera) inthe province of Modena, forming part of the samedistrict and networked together, stand out as particu-larly interesting for encouraging attendance. Therethe adolescents have the opportunity to organiseactivities themselves, with a choice among freeattendance (at Campogalliano there is also a café),the creation of programmes for individuals (informa-tion, reading, multimedia) or small-groups (musicrooms, games), and enjoying shows and initiativesorganised by the staff, who describe themselves asfacilitators. The success of these centres is consider-able; not only are they attended by large numbers ofadolescents (for instance, at Campogalliano the greatmajority of the town’s informal groups, and at Solierasome 250 adolescents during the weekend), but alsothe adolescents’ verdict on them is highly positive.

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socialise. Though this type of experience is infre-quent, some cases stand out as particularly interest-ing for understanding the potential of encouragingsocialising. In such cases the facilitators are asked toorganise events and sometimes to create servicesthat are useful and interesting for the adolescents,like information offices and multimedia rooms, inte-grating individual services with encouragement offree socialising by the adolescents.

2.5 Encouraging socialisingwithin the community

Alongside the largely dominant type of servicesoffered in centres or workshops, activities for pro-moting socialising and encounters in the communityare also carried out. In these cases, encouraging playand socialising takes on a deeper meaning in thecontext of the CFC programme, being more directlyconnected with the initiatives aimed to improve the

quality of life in the city, even though the activitiesare often short-term.

These initiatives are chiefly facilitated by streetartists, actors or activity leaders, with the organisationof contemporary dance or musical theatre shows, lit-erary meetings, or art-and-environment programmes.The city becomes the meeting place for the citizens.Often, especially in recent years, these initiatives havebeen linked to environmental awareness campaigns,promoting a world different from today’s, using slo-gans that are both evocative and explanatory, like Let’sClean Up the World, Ecological Sundays, Let’s Make aClean Sweep, The Guardians of the Forest, Bimbimbi-ci (Bike Kids) 2000, and the Tree Festival.

These activities within the community may alsobe associated with other actions in the environmen-tal area, like summer trips, educational workshops,exhibitions and shows concerning the environment,excursions and visits to places of historical and artis-tic interest.

Another equally important and certainly morecontinuous activity in the neighbourhood involvesthe ludobus (play bus), a travelling unit speciallyequipped to encourage children’s play. A ludobuscreates play situations run by facilitators. It is basi-cally an extension of the game library in the neigh-bourhood, in situations where it is hard to bring thechildren together in the same place and it is felt use-ful and appropriate to bring liveliness and play intoareas that generally do not present such opportuni-ties. The ludobus suspends, even if only momentari-ly, the rules governing the urban space, encouragingthe presence of children within the community. Incombination with action aimed at encouraging inde-pendent mobility by children, it involves them in play



Play Initiatives for Children within the Community

The most widespread type of initiative featuresencouraging play experience outdoors, offering pub-lic spaces to children and organising activities andinitiatives that bring life to the streets, squares andgardens. ‘A town for playing’, ‘Streets at play’, ‘Let’sgo back on the street’, ‘Open City’, ‘The City’s AllMine’ are among slogans used for these events. Thecommon feature is that, for a while, the city streetsare closed to traffic so that children can play there.This type of initiative is generally carried out with thecollaboration of sports clubs and voluntary organisa-tions, and with the involvement of local groups ofactivity leaders. They may also be combined withawareness campaigns on reducing pollution levels(ecological Sundays), and generally last no morethan a day. Another activity within the community isthe setting up of markets run by children in pedestri-an areas or in zones temporarily closed to traffic.

Socialising within the Community

The Corriera STRAvagante (EXTRAvagant Coach) inFerrara is part of the Adolescents and Youth Projectand arose out of an agreement between the munici-pal administration and the local health unit. It seeks tofurther socialising by young people throughout themunicipality and the province, to encourage their par-ticipation and independent planning, and to create arelationship between adolescents and the institu-tions. The coach is aimed particularly at informalgroups, encourages specific organised-group initia-tives by distributing fliers, organising activities andpromoting projects. Some of the most prominentamong these have been Il Cielo in una Stanza (Heav-en in a Room), with an informal group that painted,furnished and ran a room lent by the ward, trans-forming it into a small socialising centre; the Togeth-erness project, which organised a cine club, and theCalendar project, with photos of the young people.

Integrating Centres and Initiatives

within the Community

The workshop in the Ostuni summer centre is intend-ed to let children feel, in an institutional setting, ‘theneed to be protagonists in the city more and to exer-cise full citizenship, being listened to and findingconsideration and a welcome for their proposals’ (atown councillor). The workshop is closely linked withthe whole area, which is the real place for the chil-dren’s work. The summer centre is where all the ini-tiatives start from, in ‘an explosion of ideas, experi-ences, of doing, creating, participating, of affectingthe city’ (a councillor), from a ‘space that catalyses awhole series of possibilities, where new ideas, pro-jects, services are born, a context that promotes par-ticipation’ (one of the staff).

In the area of Cervignano del Friuli, an attempt isunder way to combine actions localised in centresthat encourage attendance (with varied features,from music to multimedia) with a travelling unitcalled Nautibus. This effort stands out as particularlyinteresting in that it favours integration between ini-tiatives in the centres and initiatives in the communi-ty, one of the few seeking to employ this methodolo-gy which is by now widespread for both children andadolescents.

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that allows them to express themselves on thestreets and squares, thus regaining the dimension offree enjoyment outdoors.

With regard to promotion of socialising amongadolescents in the community, travelling units thatwork with adolescent groups and ideally continuethe ludobus operation are employed. These vehiclesoffer opportunities to encourage fun and interper-sonal communication in informal groups of adoles-cents. In these cases too, as in the youth centres, thestaff are communication facilitators, but the orienta-tion towards the autonomy and self-organisation ofgroups of adolescents is still clearer, since the actiontakes place where they meet. The use of mobile unitsis particularly relevant in large cities, or else in pro-jects involving various small urban centres, where itis impossible or very complicated to bring all theadolescents together in the same physical place.They thus provide an alternative to creating a multi-plicity of centres, hard and expensive to run.

2.6 Raising awareness in the city

One of the decisive aspects for a CFC is creating pub-lic awareness, to reach shared approaches in the ini-tiatives and a shared perception of the most impor-tant themes (children’s rights, mobility, traffic, publicgreen space, encouraging participation by childrenand so on). Some initiatives, indeed, like those forchild mobility and the spread of child participationpractices in the schools, meet with difficulties ofacceptance by adults who feel other priorities aremore important.

Low public awareness may also lead to failures orthe local administrations giving up. One of the great-est risks with CFCs is to fail to make their dominantthemes popular and shared. Where the municipalgovernment is worried by the lack of consensus onthe initiatives, it may be tempted to abandon them orconvert them into something more favourable interms of image. This also explains why the mostwidespread activity in the cities is the town fiesta forthe children, just because it is easy to understandand extremely popular.

To make the public aware, in addition to episodicevents like Children’s Rights Days and initiatives bymunicipal councils open to citizens on themes of rel-evance to CFCs, conferences or national and interna-tional forums, exhibitions, and information initiatives(radio or television spots, press releases, web sites,CD-ROMS) have been organised. Less commonly,research on children and related activities has beencarried out and published. As regards the environ-ment, mention should be made of the national UnaGiornata Senza Auto (Car-free Day) programme, pro-moted since 1998 by the Ministry of the Environment,which has, in its various editions, seen participationby more than a thousand local bodies and manyassociations.

2.6.1 Making children aware

It is critical to make children aware of the CFC, espe-

cially through education in the areas of children’srights and the environment.

The main awareness campaigns aimed at chil-dren concern their rights, through discussions on theUN Convention on the Rights of the Child or draftingof specific charters of rights. However, such initia-tives are not very frequent.

In the environmental area, by contrast, work-shops on activities relating to environmental sustain-ability are particularly widespread, in an effort tomake new generations aware of the need to respectthe ecosystem. They are primarily educational inintent and are regarded as important for preparingindividuals capable of looking after the city andassuming responsibility for change in it. They do not,however, provide for direct project participation bychildren, as do those for participatory planning.

The main objective of environmental awarenesscourses is to favour change in the interaction betweenpeople and environment, and the actions are primari-ly to promote knowledge of the environment andenjoyment, and management by children of protectedgreen areas and nature parks. They offer children anopportunity to get to know the environment that sur-rounds them, to move about within it, to test their ownabilities, to observe environmental changes and tomake the most of the local culture.

The primary context for carrying out these activi-ties is the school, through class meetings, organisa-tion of exhibitions and competitions, and runningteaching workshops or science groups. These initia-tives are clearly distinct from the participatory plan-ning workshops, which do make use of collaborationwith schools but seek to introduce more participato-ry working methodologies there.

Alongside work in the schools, there is increasing-ly widespread decentralisation of activities to outsidespaces, through green routes and itineraries, organ-ised visits, excursions and trips to nature areas, to pro-mote not just knowledge of the surrounding area butalso enjoyment, especially of protected areas andnature parks. In this connection, some cities have setup environmental education centres in the neighbour-hood to make children and adults aware of various



Environmental Awareness

In Modena, an environmental education course waspromoted to cut wastage of water, electrical energyand gas. Children helped to clean refuse from streams.The network of Educational Farms represents anobservatory-cum-workshop in food education torediscover the local environmental, historical, culturaland gastronomic traditions, and to learn about theproduction of food using eco-friendly biological orintegrated pest control cultivation techniques.

In Novellara, educational and practical programmeshave been started with children under three to createvegetable gardens; trips have been organised torivers and streams to look for rare or endangeredspecies, map them and transfer some specimens toprotected reserves.

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environmental themes (reduction of pollution, differ-entiated refuse collection, protecting green space).Also fairly widespread are road education campaignsto communicate the importance of coordinated use ofthe roads and of road signs and relevant rules, thusimproving knowledge of urban mobility problems. Inthis type of initiative, particular importance is attachedto meeting local police, and to the commitment torespect vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Other aware-ness initiatives concern reduction of atmospheric,acoustic and electromagnetic pollution, and above allthe eco-management of solid urban waste, the com-monest of this secondary type of action.

In the environmental awareness workshops, learn-ing based on direct experience is considered funda-mental; the child is regarded as an individual acquir-ing experience and thus learning, not as one acting tobring about change. Consequently, these activities,though very interesting with regard to the formativeaspect, do not lead to major direct changes relating tochildren’s participation in the life of the city.

2.6.2 Fostering coexistence between cultures

In the international and national culture underlyingthe CFC, a city should be made aware of cross-cultur-al issues too. The cities should encourage good rela-tions among all their citizens, independently of race,religion or traditions, in the context of knowledge andinterchange between cultures and of education aboutliving together. However, though considered impor-tant at national and international levels, awareness ofcoexistence among different cultures in the shape ofcivic education and furthering of cross-cultural rela-tions is not particularly widespread, being confined toa few sensitive local situations.

There are many kinds of actions: educational (lan-guage courses), information (counters), solidarity(collections, signing up for human rights campaigns),public awareness (events, conferences and festivals),cross-cultural mediation and integration (schoolintroductions for foreign, Roma and Sinti children,and places of worship for various religions). Theseactivities are often based in cross-cultural workshopsand centres.

2.7 The new environmental

policies

In addition to the cultural change brought by increas-ingly widespread actions aimed at children, basedespecially on encouraging their participation and theinstitutional changes to the system of government, aCFC is marked by environmental changes concerningthe management of the urban ecosystem, broughtabout through specific environmental policies. Theenvironmental policies have been implemented mostnotably in the context of the CSDBB Project, whichcontributes strongly to the effort under way in Italy topromote environmental and urban sustainability.

Administrative and management actions infavour of change in the city by local authorities arepredominantly combined with the method of pro-moting children’s participation and with environmen-tal education programmes. In this context, however,the child represents not just the beneficiary or mainactor but also the parameter for the quality-of-lifestandard for all citizens. The two areas where themost innovative environmental policies are to beseen are changing the interaction between child andenvironment and encouraging mobility.

In the first area, what is innovative is above all theinvolvement of children in initiatives providing fortheir active participation, and initiatives for environ-mental education and encouragement of the knowl-edge, enjoyment and management of green areas. Inthe area of encouraging mobility, particularly innova-tive has been the creation of safe routes betweenhome and school, that is, pedestrian routes allowingchildren to gain more independence in greater safety.There have also been measures, again with childrenparticipating, to reduce traffic speeds, to create easilyrecognisable road signs (sometimes using symbolschosen and designed by the children), to widen andprotect sidewalks, and to create pedestrian areas and



Cross-cultural Actions

The Municipality of Ostuni, in collaboration with theschools, annually promotes the Mediterranean Chil-dren’s Week to build up a culture of welcome, identi-fying strategies and paths to multiply opportunitiesfor dialogue and exchange through artistic, literary,theatrical and play workshops.

In Pesaro, there have been awareness campaigns onthe rights of global citizenship, on human and sus-tainable development, projects on building bridgesamong peoples and on food aid, the European Vol-untary Service, cross-cultural festivals, a cross-cul-tural market and summer camps abroad. There havealso been initiatives to regain and value the culturalidentity of immigrant children (language support andcourses in Arabic, multiethnic festivals, school twin-ning, meetings on the rights of the child) and a twin-ning with the village of Keita in Niger.

In Belluno, the municipal administration started theInforma Immigrati (Inform the Immigrants) service,which encourages initiatives in education on multi-culturalism, such as creating a multiethnic calendar,the main theme of which is a traditional Albanian taledrawn by Belluno children. The Education to Diversi-ty project has created a multiethnic workshop withthe active involvement of teachers and cultural medi-ators, which instigates training courses. In schoolclasses and libraries, cross-cultural mediation activi-ties in favour of immigrant children and their familieshave also been held.

In Turin, a cross-cultural centre and a welcome centrefor families and mothers with foreign children havebeen opened, and a CD-ROM produced on cross-cul-tural courses as educational material for schools,associations and staff involved. Festivals and eventshave been organised, cross-cultural mediation ser-vices, twinning between schools and projects onbilingualism begun, and school introduction activi-ties organised for Roma and Sinti students.

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residential streets. There has also been considerableexpansion of the network of cycle tracks, althoughthis is often limited to the city-centre area.

These initiatives have formed part of broaderplans to regulate traffic through pedestrian areas,traffic limitation zones, cycle tracks, speed reduction,protected routes, spaces for socialising, child-friend-ly road signs, widening of sidewalks and creation ofwider, raised pedestrian crossings, safe crossingsand traffic flow improvement (roundabouts, cen-tralised traffic lights, railway overpasses).

These actions have also resulted in the reductionof atmospheric pollution, along with greater use ofminimum-impact public vehicles, especially for publictransport, school buses and the police. Other initia-tives aimed at cutting the use of vehicle pollution havealso been introduced for the citizens’ convenience andto eliminate waste, like buses on call, and the combi-nation of bicycle and bus whereby those arriving inthe centre by bus can have the free use of a bicycle.

Another area where innovative environmentalpolicies have been employed is the enhancement ofgreen areas, where again there has been participationin planning. Many schools have been given outsidespaces and courtyards with green areas, where playareas and open spaces have been created and playequipment provided. Projects for furnishing squaresand parks have been expanded, creating socialisingareas designed for play and for encouraging meetingother children. Planning activities, sometimes withchildren’s participation, have been undertaken, suchas dismantling disused buildings to make parks, orupgrading gardens or other areas in historical centresto use as public green spaces. Finally, environmentaleducation centres have been set up in nature areas.There have also been relatively frequent examples ofreorganisation and maintenance of school buildingsin accordance with criteria of eco-compatibility, and

of reorganisation and maintenance of condominiumareas to create green playgrounds.

All this is connected with policies aimed to makepublic spaces enjoyable and accessible. The mostwidespread initiative has been to guarantee accessto school areas outside teaching hours, enablingschools to open up more to the surrounding world.At some hospitals, welcome areas have been createdto guarantee the right to play for child patients. Oneparticularly innovative measure has been theupgrading of town squares, with a view to sparkingoff the transformation of the urban fabric and aprocess of social and cultural revitalisation.

One last innovative area for environmental poli-cies has been in the eco-management of solid urbanwaste, where environmental awareness campaignshave played a considerable part. In this area, theachievement of differentiated town waste collectionbrings recognition as a ‘recycling municipality’ bythe Legambiente (the Environmental League), underthe patronage of the Ministry of the Environment. Inrecent years there have been systematic increases inthe differentiated collection of waste, made possiblepartly through the provision of ecological sites, spe-cial containers and composters distributed free to cit-izens. These initiatives have often been linked withenvironment centres. Other initiatives have involvedthe purchase of installations for the eco-managementof refuse and for the selection and processing ofdurable goods (personal computers, refrigerators,white goods and so on).

Finally, in the area of reduction of architecturalbarriers, assistance has been given for restructuringprivate dwellings and to maintenance work inschools, on means of transport and roads (pedestri-an passages, audible traffic lights, and green routesfor the visually impaired).



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tion; in fact, it has the function of training the children’spersonality, guiding their knowledge, their choices andtheir behaviour. To do this, education is based primari-ly on expectations of learning (cognitive expectations)and of rule-following (normative expectations). Educa-tion thus has primarily cognitive and normative signif-icance, although in recent decades there has been spe-cial attention paid by educators to emotionaldevelopment as well (Baraldi, 2001).

Cognitive and normative education can effective-ly support the encouragement of children’s participa-tion - that is, their involvement as independent socialactors who express their own views and proposesolutions - by supplying young people with suitableinstruments for participating in competent fashion.Learning and the setting of rules can be meansaimed at supporting children’s capacity to actively

33Analysis of Good PracticesInnocenti Research Centre

3.1 Encouraging participation

and education

Encouragement of participation by children as prac-ticed in Italian CFCs entails a change of approach byadults, who must learn how to treat children as inde-pendent persons, though in development.

In the view of the majority of the local authorities,planners and other staff working in CFCs, adultsmust also respond to a need for guidance on the partof the children. The idea of encouraging social partic-ipation by children thus still has to accommodate theneed to educate and to guide them.

In the approach to children of educators, onefinds a combination of encouraging independence,educative guidance and protection. Educators, how-ever, generally tend to emphasize the child need forguidance and protection over that for independence.

As educational approaches figure highly, CFC pro-ponents generally take a critical line towards the waychildren are currently treated at school and otherplaces generally regarded as educational, feeling thatin these contexts they are not sufficiently regarded asactive citizens or competent individuals. In conse-quence, many of them hope for a change, based onfull recognition of the child’s competences, in theapproach to education currently prevalent in the Ital-ian school system. Education ought to take on innov-ative forms and methods, offering room for thechild’s creativity and participation.

The innovative form of education should be subor-dinated to encouraging participation by the children.

Education in schools has historically had otherfunctions and aims than encouraging child participa-

3ANALYSIS OF GOOD PRACTICES

Innovative Education

“All the activities carried out have the objective of let-ting the child grow, developing all his or her potentialand capacities. They are activities that train the childtoo, from the point of view of landscape, environmentand so on. They must leave something up to the child,and not just be pure entertainment. At the end of thegame, the child knows something more, has moreskills, more knowledge than before. The objective is tolet the child grow and bring out what he or she wantsto do, in the sense of education as drawing out whatis already there. There is great value set on ongoingdialogue with the child to create participation. Thepoint is to make use of what the child has got, theproblem he or she has, allowing for individualisedinterventions” (an educational worker in Ostuni).

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participate in choices or projects and manage theirown lives as citizens.

The two dominant approaches are reflected in thepractice of developing Child Friendly Cities. Whenencouragement of participation by children isreduced to only or mainly cognitive or normativeeducation, an ambivalence is created, arising fromthe fact that the children are treated as independentonly according to conditions set from outside. Thiscorresponds to ambivalence in the adult’s role incommunicating with the children; on the one hand,the adult listens to the children and lets them expressthemselves; on the other, he or she guides them. Theadult is at the same time facilitator and guidanceprovider, encouraging independence and directing itfrom outside.

On the contrary, when child participation is set asa priority goal, the cognitive process becomes ameans to full participation, providing children withthe knowledge, information and competence neces-sary to participate effectively.

3.2 Participatory planning

with children

In the context of the Italian CFC experience, it hasbeen noted, participation in planning is undoubtedlythe most widespread activity in terms of encouragingchild participation. It is regarded as the best way tocarry out initiatives in favour of urban and environ-mental sustainability.

3.2.1 Meanings

The most important meaning attaching to participa-tion in planning is that of encouraging children’sinvolvement as active subjects in processes ofchange, able to redefine the social, institutional andcultural models of the city and to support the munic-ipal government in its urban planning. In particular,participatory planning activities must:

● Be an example for the city as ‘bottom-up’ action● Bring to the local authorities attention the collec-

tive aspirations, identifying the opinions and needsof the citizens.

● Bring out the role of children as active citizens,aware of the city’s need for the well-being of all cit-izens and sustainable development.

● Bring the children closer to what the local authori-ties are doing by making the technical and financialimplementation of projects transparent and under-standable to all.

● Lead to the updating of technical staff skills.

Participatory planning has, however, a secondmeaning as well: education for active citizenship,empowering children with the instruments they needto develop cognitive, cultural, manual and relationalcapacities. This means that the activities should: ● Accustom children to listening to the different lan-

guages used and opinions expressed by the vari-ous members of the community.

● Help them to regard themselves as part of a group

with varied and conflicting interests but able to seethe common objective of the quality of life as abasis for dialogue.

● Teach children about planning and project imple-mentation by supplying instruments enablingthem to move from identifying needs to formulat-ing operational hypotheses.

● Encourage them to respect resources and regardthem as collective assets.

The twofold meaning of participatory planning(encouraging participation and education) isexpressed in the interaction between the two distinctroles for those leading the workshops: the role ofexpert (normally a planner or an architect), whointroduces the meaning and methodology of partici-patory planning and provides the technical assis-tance for carrying out projects; and that of facilitator(normally a teacher) who, starting from the expert’sindications, puts the projects into practice togetherwith the children and has the task of listening tothem, both letting them express themselves andsupporting them. It is often noted that the personworking with the children should be a ‘cultural medi-ator’, as in Fano, able to translate the children’s cul-ture into the adult one and in particular into the cul-ture of the technicians. A facilitator like this does notprimarily teach and train but has the role of “quietlyaccompanying when appropriate, and speakingmeaningfully when it is useful” (a councillor inPesaro). In general, the facilitator is trained by anexpert, even if the latter’s objectives may be differentfrom the former’s. While the expert is chiefly inter-ested in involving the children in changing the city,the facilitator’s interest and motivation are notalways so obvious. Especially where the facilitator isa teacher, the educational aspect may prevail, thusjeopardising the twofold nature of participatory plan-ning in practice.

3.2.2 Methods

There is an established literature on ways of creatingan effective workshop for participatory planning withchildren (Lorenzo, 2000; Ministero dell’Ambiente,2001; Tonucci, 1995, 1996, 2003; Lamedica, 1998,2003). Though various methods are described, it isgenerally held that participatory planning involves anumber of stages:

● Setting an objective, almost always defined by theadult experts on the basis of local priorities and theinvolvement of the children.

● Having the experts train the facilitators.● Starting work with the children by gathering shared

information, unpublished data and knowledgeabout the community.

● Working out jointly by the experts, facilitators andchildren of the meaning of the data and knowledgeacquired.

● Stimulating the children’s ideas for new projects,using brainstorming or similar techniques.

● Designing new projects with small groups of chil-dren.

● Creating a collective project (in the form of a modelor drawing) combining the small groups’ projects.

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● Presenting the overall project to public opinionand the municipal authorities for possible imple-mentation.

● Joint carrying out and running of the project by thechildren, local authorities and experts, when this ismade possible.

Through all these stages, the combination ofencouraging the participation and education of chil-dren depends in great part on the relationship creat-ed between experts and facilitators. This starts withthe training of the latter (often teachers) by the former(usually planners, architects, engineers), and isexpressed in the joint running of the activities. Sincealmost all the workshops take place in schools, theproblem of combining the encouragement of partici-pation with education is also a question of the rela-tionship between the schools and the outside experts.

The primacy of normative and cognitive educa-tion is particularly evident in cases where the activi-ties call for the direct involvement of teachers asfacilitators. These often aim at letting the childrenacquire the skills to put together a good product,above all in terms of the planning logic and the pre-cision of execution. Participatory projects are hereprimarily translated into cognitive education, aimedat improving performance, creating a civic sense andeducating the children in group work.

In cases of predominantly cognitive educationalcommunication, however, the children are frequentlyrather uncooperative and uninterested, so that thefacilitators are forced to become insistent to get theminvolved in the activities. Observing classroomdynamics, one sees that the possibilities for interper-sonal communication among the children are greatlyreduced, tending to reappear as chatting and inatten-tion, which makes it harder to carry out the activitiesand forces the facilitator to make continualreminders. Instead of encouraging the activity, thefacilitator frequently has to monitor its accomplish-ment by laying down rules of conduct. This cognitiveand normative educational approach contradicts thevery idea of participatory planning, since the facilita-tor guides the children’s activities by giving bindinginstructions for carrying them out, so that the chil-dren are not independent but confine themselves tofollowing instructions.

Child participation instead more frequently comesto the fore where the operation is run directly byexperts in participatory planning, normally in the Ital-ian experience planners and architects. In thesecases, the activity encourages the children’s activeand independent participation, with the basic aim ofcarrying out a collective project based on teamwork.Here the facilitator has a role on the same footing asthe children’s. In this role, the facilitator does notbother to teach how work is to be carried out or eval-uate the results of the children’s performance, insteadcreating the conditions for a relaxed, encouraging,interesting and entertaining activity. Consequently,communication is more often successful, motivatingthe children to participate actively in the project.

To sum up, if the activity is handled with the pri-mary aim of encouraging participation, children are

interested, relaxed and active. If instead it takes a pri-marily educational, cognitive form, children are lessinterested and involved, so that the work is continu-ally punctuated by the facilitator’s reminders, or elsedone in silence and without active participation.

3.2.3 Implementing projects designedby children

Carrying out projects resulting from a participatoryprocess is usually the responsibility of both munici-pal authorities and technicians, the former as deci-sion-makers and the latter in an executive role.Sometimes, though, bureaucracy and the provisionsin force hamper speedy, effective implementation.Even in cities that stand out for attaching specialimportance to participatory planning, what is actual-ly achieved is limited, as project leaders and facilita-tors note with concern and regret.

The reasons given are that procedures of publicadministrations are lengthy and complicated, andclash with the children’s expectations. Sometimesthis innovative way of operating creates problems ofcomprehension and coordination in the administra-tions that get in the way of action. These difficultiesmean that the significance of children’s involvementin urban change is drastically cut back in the movefrom planning to implementation.

This also raises the serious problem of how to pre-sent the significance of these activities to the children.Generally, interviews have brought out a tendency toadvise against guaranteeing the children that theirprojects can actually be carried out and lead to realchange in the city. Caution like this, however, ampli-fies the educational and scholastic aspect of the activ-ities at the expense of children’s participation, whichends up seeming useless or superfluous. Completetransparency and realism concerning feasibility thusreduce the meaningfulness of participatory projects. Asimilar result is reached when the children are told todo only what the adults consider to be feasible. In thisway the children’s own feelings about what mattersare not valued whenever they lead to projects that theadults do not believe can be carried out.

An analysis of the initiatives brings out the diffi-culties in putting into practice various suggestionsfor adequately encouraging child participation (Lans-down, 2001): creating realistic expectations in thechildren; determining clear, definite objectivesagreed with them; making the experts’ and facilita-tors’ approach transparent; and coordinating thework between children and adults.

One way of tackling these difficulties may be toset up a process of communicative negotiation onthe objectives to be reached, involving both childrenand adults (experts, facilitators, local authorities, andtechnicians), by combining two stages:

1. Negotiation between children and experts andfacilitators, considered as a team, from the outsetin setting goals and selecting projects; and

2.Negotiation between children and local authoritiesand technical staff, making possible a coordinatedapproach to tackling the problems faced duringimplementation.


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Negotiation between the children and adultsinvolved seems to be the only way to draw up the cri-teria and possibilities for planning and implementa-tion, without debasing the children’s independence inplanning the city. It also permits clarification togeth-er with the children of the type of rules within whicheffective participation can be secured, and the degreeof feasibility of their projects. Negotiation seems tobe practised and practicable between children andthe facilitators who further child participation. Theproblem is by contrast currently underestimated withregard to the children’s relationship with the facilita-tors who educate them and still more with localauthorities and technical staff.

3.3 Participating in decisions

The Consigli Comunali dei bambini e dei ragazzi (Chil-dren and Young People’s Town Councils) constitute thepredominant channel for ensuring fulfilment of chil-dren’s rights and their participation in important deci-sions affecting the city. In some cases, these councilsare also directly involved in participatory planning.

In particular, there are important differencesbetween two dominant methodologies adopted bychildren’s councils that may be defined as ‘educatingfor decisions’ and ‘encouraging decisions’. These dif-ferences concern four basic aspects:● the selection of children’s council members● the significance of the activities● the importance of the children’s role● the role of the adults (experts or facilitators)

3.3.1 The meaning of the two models

In the “educating for decisions” model, the objectiveof cognitive and normative education is more evident,as the young people’s town council is primarily con-ceived of as a way of educating the children in therules of democracy. Decisions concerning expendituretoo have an educative value, often involving the com-mitment of modest sums, so as to teach children howto handle them carefully. In the “encouraging deci-sions” model, the objective of promoting child partici-pation stands out more; the aim is in fact to affect theway the city is run directly by ‘advising’ the adults.

Supporters of the “educating for decisions”model claim a greater impact for the role assigned tothe children but can hardly boast any great impact ongovernance processes. Supporters of the “encourag-ing decisions” model count on the willingness of themunicipal councils to take children’s views into con-sideration, with the awareness that lack of attentionto their aspirations may substantially reduce themunicipal government effectiveness.

In both cases, however, the decisive factor is theeffectiveness of the facilitators. In the “educating fordecisions“ model, they have to be able to help chil-dren handle funds and roles carefully, while in the“encouraging decisions” model they have to ensurethat themes of importance to the children are includ-ed in the municipal agenda.

3.3.2 Selecting young people’s council members

All the children’s councils consist of representativesof elementary and middle schools, with variations innumber and age. Methods of selecting council mem-bers range from election (preferred in the “educatingfor decisions” model), to drawing lots (preferred inthe “encouraging decisions” model), to selection bythe teachers on the basis of academic competence(that is, the best students in the class are chosen), anapproach not provided for in the two prevailingmethodologies but in fact sometimes used.

The method of election simulates the municipalcouncils in the democratic political system and ischosen for that reason. It tends, however, to favourthe boldest, the most eloquent or the most enterpris-ing, - in other words, those who want to stand forelection and are more convincing because they aremore interested and effective. The method of draw-ing lots is intended to preserve the council from theinfluence of the adult world, particularly in relation tothe effects of selecting participants, and to encouragethe entry of children who have not necessarily assim-ilated adult forms of participation.

3.3.3 Activities by children’s councils

In the “educating for decisions“ model, council mem-bers work primarily or exclusively on specific, con-crete projects on the basis of a budget assigned bythe local administration, the size of which allows onlysmall or marginal changes, such as the purchase ofmaterial or equipment for the school, or furniture forthe playground. The children’s council decides howbest to use the resources available to it on the basisof the priorities it lays down.

In the “encouraging decisions” model there is nobudget available to the children’s council, which hasto look at topics of importance to the city. The chil-


The Fano Children’s Council

The Fano Children’s Council follows a “encouragingdecisions” model. During the years of its activity, ithas asked the Municipal Council for: 1) Closure of the main city streets to traffic for eventsone day per year 2) Use of sports installations ‘with no trainer’ (i.e.,without having to register with a sports association)3) Use of the squares as places to play4) Creation of a play area near the beach with a ter-race and a gazebo5) Devoting the amount of the CSDBB award to con-verting a cottage to use for play and educationalactivities for children

The town administration responded positively tothese requests. The Children’s Council also devel-oped the Carta del pedone (Pedestrians’ Charter),arising from discussion of mobility problems in thecity, and started intergenerational workshops with anold people’s club. The children’s council membershave available a page in the periodical published bythe city, in which they present an account of theiractivities and express their needs.

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dren’s council presents its own ideas and its ownrequests to the municipal council, asking it to makecommitments on questions of collective importance.The discussions, decisions and requests to themunicipal council thus concern themes of impor-tance to the city, and sometimes, though not always,this means the possibility of deciding directly on theuse of the budget or the making of changes.

3.3.4 The children’s and the adults’ roles

In the “educating for decisions” model, child councilmembers hold offices similar to those that adultshold on the municipal council and are elected in rep-resentative roles, starting from the mayor. Taking onthese roles enables them to implement decisions onspending the budget available and to represent thechildren on official occasions. In the “encouragingdecisions” model, there are no elective offices, nomayor and no differences in roles among councilmembers. The latter are on an equal footing in col-lectively developing policies concerning the city andon changes to make in it.

In the “educating for decisions” model, the facilita-tor is usually a teacher. The council is often organizedinside the school, and is aimed mainly at civic educa-tion with a normative orientation. In the “encouragingdecisions” model, the facilitator is generally an outsideexpert, not part of the school world. The council meetsin public places outside the school, and the facilitatorhas the task of encouraging intergenerational groupdiscussions, thus putting the children in a position tobring their wishes before the municipal council.

3.3.5 Educational practices

The “educating for decisions” model is currentlymore widespread. Its central aim is to encourageorganizational capabilities (for competitions, festivi-ties and so on), using the children’s and young peo-ple’s normal social contexts, like the school and itsplayground, gardens and play areas - that is, spacesspecially designed and built for almost exclusive useby children and young people.

One notes, however, that the dimension of thecity, understood as a place where all can actively par-ticipate, with children and young people treated ascitizens making use of a shared urban space, tends todisappear in this approach.

The meetings show a predominantly educational,normative approach. Normative expectations areparticularly noticeable in:

● Frequent requests to comply with the rules ofdebating (the agenda, taking turns to speak, writ-ing minutes) which set rather formalized conditionson the children’s participation.

● Instructions to pay attention and participatethrough direct reminders or demonstrations of dis-approval.

● The effort to transmit values.

This means that, while on the one hand the coun-cil’s independence in decision making is upheld, onthe other there is an explicit demand to confine to aspecific set of values.

Cognitive expectations are also noticeable, since

the main point is to learn the meanings of citizenshipand representation, with learning ways of discussingand the value of confrontation and of respect partic-ularly to the fore.

Normative and cognitive expectations thus guidethe bulk of the communication processes betweenthe children and young people on the one hand, andthe facilitators and other adults who sometimes takepart in the meetings (councillors, mayors), on theother. Communication between adults and childrenalways seeks to combine learning and practice, andto be guided by the rules of democracy and good cit-izenship. Nonetheless, there is a range from an open-ly school approach, present in councils where teach-ers have a direct role as facilitators, to one whichinstead seeks to keep the councils removed from theschool environment, though stressing the impor-tance of learning the values of society and the princi-ples of citizenship. In the latter case, evidence hasshown that cognitive expectations constitute thebackground for more relaxed, interpersonal commu-nication between the children or young people andthe facilitators, encouraging dialogue and exchangeof views among the participants.

3.3.6 Promoting decision practices

Encouraging child participation is more explicitlypursued in the councils that follow the “encouragingdecisions” model. In this case, the communicationbetween facilitator and children does create learningexpectations but at the same time allots primaryimportance to the children’s personal views. The facil-itator does not mainly pursue an educational objec-tive but seeks to clarify the goal of transforming thecity. Since a child-friendly city is to be created, fol-lowing the children’s personal views is openly recog-nized as fundamental. The facilitator takes the role of‘defender of the children’, underlining the importanceof fulfilling children’s rights, and seeking to make thechildren aware of their rights and of failures to imple-ment them.

This method inspires a positive and attentive atti-tude in the children and gives rise to alternatingphases in which both the children’s and the facilita-tors’ viewpoints emerge. This brings about a combi-nation of encouraging changes to the city that thechildren actively and independently want and thenormative and cognitive education used to reachsocially useful results. The latter enables the objectsof discussion to be reached faster without jeopardis-ing participation, since knowledge is the foundationof the participatory process. Rules, too, are laid downwithout punishment-like interventions, thanks to theinterpersonal communication with the children.

3.4 Encouraging children

to move freelyEncouraging children to move freely between homeand school is often associated with participatoryplanning by children. However, developing saferoutes for children requires much broader involve-ment by the social actors. Families, schools, technicalstaff dealing with roads, police, grandparents and


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shopkeepers are all regarded as important for thesuccess of these initiatives. Children then face amore complex process of motivating and coordinat-ing the various individuals involved.

Families are often reluctant to let their children goto school on their own. Parents’ fears derive frominterpreting affection for their child primarily in termsof protection, reducing their room for independentaction (Baraldi and Maggioni, 2000). While saying thatin principle they favour allowing their children to trav-el alone to and from school, parents face everyday sit-uations (traffic, dangerous strangers, insufficient polic-ing) that often make them decide to continue toaccompany them.

Schools are often invited to support independenceof movement by pupils. However, the school norms inforce hamper initiatives allowing children to movefreely and independently, since under Italian lawpupils cannot be left alone or in the company ofminors of the same age, on the schools premises. Thisobliges teachers to maintain continuous surveillanceover school exits and, at least theoretically, to reportto the authorities parents who fail to pick up their chil-dren from school. Moreover, the school is interestedin independence mainly in relation to educationaltasks and thus tends to concentrate its attention onthis aspect, undermining other important forms ofchild independence.

Municipal police and highway departments areinvited to respond to families’ demands for safetyand for maintaining the condition of the roads insuch a way as to favour children’s ability to movefreely. These actions are regarded as important main-ly by the families, but they are also an outcome of theoverall initiative because they constitute an impor-tant sign of change in the city. However, there is notalways sufficient continuity in action by the police orsufficient diligence by highway departments. Often,indeed, parents complain of delays and difficulties,which signal (to children and families) that the publicadministration has other priorities and end up dimin-ishing support for the initiative.

Finally, in the Italian context the community hasalso been given a role. Shopkeepers and older peo-ple, such as grandparents, for example, are invited toassist the children in case of need by creating a pro-tective community network. The contribution of suchcitizens, however, has not yet been taken full advan-tage of. Often they are hardly recognised by the chil-dren themselves and seem to be scarcely visible, thusnot significantly helping to encourage freedom andindependence of movement on the part of children.

Given these difficulties, what is crucial to the suc-cess of this initiative is the method adopted, espe-cially with regard to communication with the varioussocial actors involved. Moving freely and indepen-dently cannot be encouraged simply by proposingsupport policies. Above all, it requires working oneffective communication between the individualsinvolved. On the basis of experience, the most effec-tive procedure seems to be:

● To acquire adequate, reliable knowledge on the sit-uation prevailing at the start.

● To meet beforehand both with the children and withthe various adults who might become involved(parents, teachers, administrators, police, shop-keepers, the elderly and the local community as awhole), stimulating their motivation to collaborateby using appropriate communication strategies.

● To involve teachers and children more deeply inworking out routes from home to school, usingparticipatory planning methods.

● To test out safe routes under the supervision ofpolice and the community, the elderly in particular.

● To mobilise the community to demand increasing-ly effective measures to change traffic patterns andregulations, building on the success of the experi-mental stage.

● To consolidate the initiative, continuing both tomonitor it and to raise awareness by participants.

The most sensitive aspect of encouraging chil-dren’s freedom of movement is the relationshipbetween encouraging independence and guarantee-ing safety and protection, which largely depends onnegotiation between the families and the teachers onthe one hand, and the advocates of CFCs on theother. Here, what counts is the ability of the latter tocommunicate the importance of children’s personalindependence in the city to families and teachers.

It is worth emphasizing that, despite all theseproblems, where it has been possible to make anassessment (in particular, in Fano and Pesaro), thechildren’s enthusiasm for the furtherance of theirfreedom of movement is extremely high and almostuniversal, both among those allowed to go to schoolon their own and those unable to do so.

3.5 Innovative services

and facilities

Services and facilities too may be particularly usefulin encouraging participation by children and adoles-cents and be regarded as innovative for this reason.A first example comes from the ludoteche (the game


Encouraging Freedom of Movement

In Pesaro, this methodology proved very effective.First of all, research established the nature of theexisting cultural and planning obstacles. Second, abroad process of consultation and involvement ofparents, teachers and administrators was embarkedon, which laid the cultural foundations for the initia-tive. Subsequently, with the advice and involvementof an expert (architect) and the workers of the Labo-ratorio Città dei Bambini (Children’s City Workshop), anumber of actions were undertaken in the class-rooms. First, the topic of the children’s fear was tack-led in group sessions. Then, together with the chil-dren, maps of the routes were made, spot checksdone, itineraries arranged, and suggestions devel-oped to change road patterns for forwarding to themunicipal authorities. The whole route was monitoredusing an evaluative research methodology. At the endof this process, in the initial experimentation phasevery broad success was achieved, with four times asmany children going to school unaccompanied.

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libraries mentioned above), where the importanceattached to entertainment also facilitates participa-tion and interpersonal communication, even if some-times the activities emphasise play alone. Interper-sonal communication is often encouraged byfacilitators, since the game library is regarded as thelocus of sociality.

This approach is particularly clear in cases wherethe facilitators offer support to children who displayshyness towards a new game or the other partici-pants. In these cases, it may be observed that emo-tional support and refraining from being judgmentalencourage child participation, which is not depen-dent on displaying particular skills. The emphasis ison the child as a person, and interpersonal emotion-al communication is a tool to stimulate children’s par-ticipation and their involvement in the activity.

In the game libraries, where these forms of com-munication are practical, children’s activities developin more personalised and creative fashion. Respectand support for independence enable each child toparticipate at his or her own pace, without standard-isation. Communication is only occasionally basedon normative or cognitive expectations; much moreoften encouragement is given to creative and imagi-native expression by the children, based on forms ofinterpersonal emotional communication.

Cognitive educational forms instead come aboutwhere workshop activities providing for involvementand learning occur. And where there are problemsand conflicts, normative expectations may also bemanifested in cases of provocation and challenge,inducing facilitators to insist on the need to respectthe rules of behaviour.

In activities connected with the ludobus (the playbus mentioned above) the level of cognitive educa-tion is even lower, since it is not possible to createworkshop situations in the streets as it is in the gamelibraries. Play situations are freer than those in thegame libraries, favouring still more relaxed forms ofinterpersonal communication and play.

In some centres for adolescents aiming for totalor partial self-management, free mingling amongadolescents is openly encouraged, based on a com-bination of interpersonal communication and enter-tainment. This mingling is often undervalued or dis-couraged by the adults on the assumption that it isunimportant or even perhaps harmful, as it is some-times maintained in relation to informal groups ofadolescents meeting in squares, on the streets or incafé. In these centres, adolescents are encouraged tomingle as a form of participation by them worthy ofattention and respect. This encouragement favoursinterpersonal relations among peers and indepen-dent ‘hanging out’, considered fundamental for ado-lescents. A participatory approach rather than anorganisational or educational one is more successfulwith adolescents.

The adolescents’ expectations of the youth centresare concentrated more on interpersonal relations thanon education, and on the importance of independenceof expression in activities than on the learning of skills.Consequently, adolescents can easily tire of an educa-

tional centre and seek other, more independent andparticipatory forms of communication. Their view ofthe socialising centre is predominantly as a place tomingle, with a discreet, friendly facilitator, where theonly fundamental rule is self-determination.

In the same direction, one particularly innovativemethod for encouraging such socializing is the use ofitinerant vehicles, which ideally continue the actionof the ludobus catering for children. These vehiclesoffer adolescents the opportunity to get together ininformal groups. The encouragement of interperson-al communication arises both in the type of propos-als made to the group (going on a trip, taking part ina musical programme, discussing interpersonalthemes), and in the way the facilitator addresses thegroup (talking intimately about personal interestsand problems, joking, having fun together), and final-ly in the ease of communication (familiar and basedon mutual trust). The need of adolescent groups forself-determination is still clearer here, since the activ-ity takes place in their everyday surroundings.

3.6 Children’s views

on their own participationTaking children’s views into consideration is funda-mental in a Child Friendly City. Their own perceptionof how friendly is their city is key in assessing itsstrengths and weaknesses.

3.6.1 Strengths and weaknesses

The will to encourage participation and to improveliving conditions in the city was appreciated andregarded as important by all the interviewed childrenwho had taken part in participatory planning, chil-dren’s municipal councils and initiatives furtheringmobility. The importance of the children’s own partic-ipation and the relevance of their contribution andrelationship with the adults were noted by all. Inassessing the activities the children brought out thefollowing strong points:

● The pleasure and enjoyment gained from theseactivities, especially in relation to participatoryplanning and furthering mobility.

● The experience of working in groups, especially inparticipatory planning, as well as in the children’scouncils, which permitted communication withfriends, carrying out projects and making choicestogether.

● The possibility of effectively influencing change inthe city by deciding on and implementing projects.

● The possibility of showing their own level of com-petence and independence, often underestimatedor ignored, to adults.

● The importance of making children’s rights visibleand known, and of influencing decision-makingprocesses.

In particular, the children noted that the activitieshad enabled them to express their own ideas andbring them to fruition. They observed one notable dif-ference in these activities compared with work nor-mally done in school: there was greater attention to


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their points of view and a more interesting and enter-taining way of working, especially in participatoryplanning.

More generally, the relationship with facilitatorsfrom outside the school was defined as less formaland more spontaneous than with the teachers. In par-ticular, the relationship with the experts in participa-tory planning was appreciated, since the children feltthey were more interested in getting things donethan in rating their performance, and were thus notobsessed with learning levels or respect for rules.

What stands out in these comments is how thechildren managed to grasp the intent of adults to givethem a fundamental role in decision-making process-es. They appreciated the opportunity to take part inthem and to contribute to improving the city, display-ing enthusiasm and passion. In fact, they asked tocontinue and increase such activities, inviting themunicipal authorities to make greater commitmentsto improving living conditions in the community.

The weak points noted by the children concernthe attitude of those adults, who did not show theybelieved in the children’s ideas and capabilities. In

fact, the criticisms from the children have to do with:

● Their relationship with the facilitators, who took onthe role of ‘teachers’, creating mistrust and disap-pointment.

● Their relationship with the municipal authorities,who did not keep their promises to carry out theprojects.

In various circumstances, the children saw thefacilitators playing a guiding role which, although itwas seen negatively, was often accepted and some-times even noted as necessary by the more acquies-cent children. On some occasions, though, the chil-dren clearly called this role into question.

The problem of relating with the adult world is par-ticularly sensitive with regard to implementing the chil-dren’s projects and ideas, a process which, as theadults themselves admit, is often limited and slow.Many children noted sizable delays in carrying out theirprojects and ideas and accused the adults, especiallythe local authorities, of not having listened to their pro-posals or not allowing them to express themselves.

In various instances the children openlyreproached the adults, both facilitators and adminis-trators, with having excluded them from decisions.Sometimes the children also insinuated that thesehad been in bad faith, in particular for having madeuse of the initiatives to carry out already existingplans. At times it was also noted that the adults didnot regard them as sufficiently competent, consider-ing them to be ‘too small’ and hence not capable ofcarrying out their proposals. Nonetheless, there wasalso widespread trust among the children in the pro-moters of the projects, whose intentions to imple-ment the proposals they often judged to be genuine.

Alongside scepticism towards the adults, the chil-dren also showed self-criticism concerning the feasi-bility of the decisions and projects proposed bythem, recognising that many of their requests werenot realistic.

Their realising the weaknesses in the initiativesthus leads to increasing scepticism towards theadults and realism regarding their own proposals. Allround, though, the children’s assessments most fre-quently seem benevolent. This means that apprecia-tion for the novelty of being able to participate in anew form of communication with their peers andwith adults tends to overcome the children’s disap-pointment at the lack of results or the failure to fulfilthe objectives.

3.7 Overall effectiveness

of the practices

Endeavouring to implement CFCs in Italy, mainlythrough the combination of Law 285/97 and theCSDBB Project, has brought innovation on both asmall and a large scale to many towns and cities.From this endeavour have emerged both strongpoints and problematic aspects.

Local CFC promoters have almost always indicat-ed participatory planning, the children’s and young


Children’s Comments

Positive“It’s a nicer way to pass the time at school.”You even learn while you play.”“An unusual, different way of doing school.”“We did all the calculations, the measurements, justlike doing a subject, say, mathematics, but more fun.”“What you do in school is more theoretical, whereasif you go outside, you go right into practice, and youeven have more fun, you manage to produce more.”“The projects concern you personally, as if, I don’tknow, you study and do a project for an area nearyour home, that is, where you live, whereas atschool, it doesn’t interest you personally.”“It’s better, because in ordinary classes it looks verymuch as if the children are inferior to the adults.”“With the teachers we ask ‘can we do that?’, and theteachers say yes, but instead with this project it’s theteachers that ask us ‘shall we do this?’, and we sayyes or no.”“When you do an ordinary lesson, the teachersdecide everything, what you do, what you don’t do.Instead, when [we do] the children’s project they lis-ten to your opinions and you decide too what youwant to do.”“The architects understand us more” and “believe inus.”

Negative“First the teacher asked us who wanted to take part,then she chose the best ones.”“My teachers are not so willing, no way; so she [theteacher] says: ‘I’ve got a clear conscience’, just like that,but that’s not really so at all …. She says it’s the othersthat don’t give us room and don’t have a clear con-science... but she gives me absolutely no room at all.”“We didn’t have much time because the teachers hadto do their programme and that was that.”“Perhaps we are asking too much.”

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people’s town councils and encouraging mobility asthe most significant actions. In the eyes of localauthorities and planners too the significant initiativesare those combining environmental, cultural andinstitutional changes in the city, on the basis ofencouraging children’s participation. It is thereforeimportant to verify the effectiveness of these prac-tices. By ‘effectiveness’ what is meant is the capacityto attain the objectives with the available means. Toidentify parameters for evaluating effectiveness, alimited but meaningful number of variables have tobe defined, intermediate between the CSDBB Project,which proposes a large number of criteria, and Law285/97, which does not set any.

The parameters emerging from an analysis oflocal CFC experiences and thus proposed as relevantfor evaluating overall effectiveness are as follows:

● Creation of an effective network, both intersec-torally within the local government system andamong the various partners in the community, forplanning, coordinating and monitoring the activi-ties (effectiveness of organisation).

● Effective promotion of participation by children,creating the conditions for explicit recognition oftheir rights (effectiveness of the process).

● Visible effects on the city and on the children’s lives(effectiveness of results).

● Effective involvement of citizens in the initiativesthrough social awareness and promotion of meth-ods and results (effectiveness of dissemination).

● Maintenance of coherence between objectives andoutcomes (planning effectiveness).

3.7.1 Organisational effectiveness: coordination

In the Italian CFC experience, a number of networkshave been developed connecting actors locally,nationally and internationally. Further, there hasbeen a clear tendency towards interdisciplinaryapproaches. The creation of networks appears to be asignificant indicator of adequate CFC planning. Thenetworks have not, however, always been capable ofsustaining effective practices, and it should bestressed that their proliferation should have not justhad symbolic but also operational significance.

In this context, the role of experts and the thirdsector has proved highly significant in both planningand implementation phases. Nonetheless, the varietyof cultural and professional resources deployed, hasnot always brought the hoped-for results. Divergentinterpretations of aims and methods have some-times jeopardise the capacity to meet objectives.

The great majority of local authorities, plannersand other staff recognize the difficulties of developingan overall concept of a CFC. There have been problemsof making citizens aware, as shown by indifference orresistance to the changes proposed, and resistance tonetworking among the various social actors involvedin the planning process. All the same, this explanationis insufficient. The effectiveness of an organizationdoes not simply derive from the creation of coordina-tion and networks but from their actual effectivenessin supporting initiatives. This requires flexibility and

rapidity in decision-making, and all features that canbe guaranteed only by independence on the part ofthe networks from the originating bodies in decidingand managing the coordination of activities.

This sort of system should not be too cumber-some to avoid paralysing actions. It must takeaccount of the commitments and timings but aboveall must be selective, involving only truly motivatedparticipants able to contribute effectively to the goalsthrough efficient communication.

3.7.2 Effectiveness of the process:encouraging participation

The effectiveness of the process is the most impor-tant parameter for evaluating the implementation ofa CFC. The process derives from the quality of com-munication between adults and children, and itsimpact on the practice.

The most innovative method used in developingCFCs has been encouraging participation by children.Participatory initiatives have been generally seenfavourably by local authorities because they offerhigh visibility and are appreciated by public opinion,especially when they lead to improvements in thecity’s image. The encouragement of participationemploys a number of procedures that create the con-ditions for effectiveness (Lansdown, 2001):● Dealing with issues of importance to the children;● Carrying out the activities with an eye to real pos-

sibilities of changing the city;● Creating a consolidated relationship with the chil-

dren’s daily experience;● Sharing information with the children;● Making sufficient resources and time available for

the activities.

There are, however, specific aspects of child par-ticipation that have presented problems, in theimplementation phase. Simple and realistic expecta-tions, clarity of objectives, transparency and consis-tency in the facilitators’ views, effectiveness in shar-ing decision-making processes, involvement of thechildren right from the initial stages, joint elaborationof methods, and continuity in the initiatives are notalways guaranteed.

When initiatives are open to social participation,not just by the children but also parents, teachers orcitizens in general, implementation processesbecome particularly complex. The method of encour-aging social participation makes the CFC a complexprocess to manage.

In some cases, methodological problems havejeopardised implementation. It is therefore importantto understand how the ideas of children, facilitatedby the adults (experts, facilitators, parents, localauthorities and so on), are translated into social prac-tice. It is through the communication between adultsand children and among adults working together thatideas are transformed into practice. Considering thequality of communication is thus a key to understandthe effectiveness of CFC practices.

Communication is a creative process, throughwhich the children independently convey their


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expectations and observe problems. Young peoplecan become sceptical, sometimes hostile if theirexpectations are betrayed by adults. In order toencourage child participation adults must refrainfrom imposing norms.

Summarising the results of these observations,one can pick out basic differences between the formsof communication employed in Italian CFCs. The ori-entation imposed on the activities has ranged frombeing primarily cognitive education (dominantexpectation of learning) or normative (dominantexpectation of affirmation of rules or values), or elseencouraging participation, with the dominant expec-tation of self-expression by the children, based ontheir feelings (confirmation, reassurance and listen-ing). Given this distinction, it was found that the mostsuccessful approach was to treat the children as inde-pendent persons, instead of bearers of standardisedroles, combining education with child participation.When the personal approach dominates, communi-cation is interpersonal; when instead the standard-ised roles approach dominates, communicationbecomes impersonal. Basically, three kinds ofapproach have been identified:

● Impersonal education (fairly infrequent);● Education centred on the person: normative and

cognitive (dominant) or else emotional (infrequent);● Interpersonal promotion of participation: cognitive

or emotional and, more rarely, normative (relative-ly infrequent, and present where the coordinationof activities is entrusted to experts without educa-tional motives.)

Where a promotional form of communication wasachieved, children’s and adolescents’ participation wasricher and better stimulated. Attention to the individualand to the emotional dimension of expectations com-bines to favour social participation, though always inthe context of a visible role for the facilitators.

By contrast, educational forms of communicationshow various limitations, especially where norma-tive expectations are dominant, discouraging inde-pendent participation by the children. And primarilycognitive education, aimed at encouraging learning,proves inadequate for encouraging motivated socialparticipation, since it produces a hierarchicalapproach resembling the one followed at school.

The ambivalence of the relationship between fur-thering social participation and education is mani-fested in policy choices that reflect themselves adichotomy. On the one hand, activities are primarilyoriented and managed so as to encourage participa-tion (participatory planning, councils of children andtravelling units), and on the other, activities are pri-marily oriented and managed with an eye to cogni-tive and normative training (workshops, play andmeeting centres, cultural training initiatives).

Sometimes, however, the same policy choiceaccompanies different technical approaches. To givetwo examples:● A children’s town council run by planning experts is

generally oriented towards encouraging participa-tion, while a young people’s town council run in

schools by teachers is generally oriented towardsnormative education (education in the rules ofdemocracy).

● A meeting centre based on group leaders is gener-ally oriented towards normative education (educa-tion in good relations), while a meeting centre thatemphasises free socialising is generally orientedtowards encouraging participation.

These differences result in differing structures. Inparticular, there have been attempts to set up ChildFriendly Cities:● That are primarily oriented towards encouraging

child participation in crucial areas while not aban-doning cognitive and normative education;

● That seek to balance the encouragement of socialparticipation with cognitive and normative education;

● That primarily offer cognitive and normative edu-cational activities, though not completely aban-doning activities designed to encourage social par-ticipation;

● That reveal difficulties in integrating the activitiesinto an overall plan with a clear meaning.

An awareness of these differences is importantfor clarifying what cities intend to do and not to doconcerning children’s involvement in implementing aChild Friendly City.

3.7.3 Effectiveness of results: changing the cityand children’s lives

The most important result expected of an Italian CFCis to change the city to improve children’s lives. Envi-ronmental policies and models of good governanceare the essential outcomes, considered attainable byencouraging social participation.

The effectiveness of the results can thus beobserved in relation to the environmental and institu-tional changes in the city. In other words, there areresults if children’s participation produces actualchanges in the cities. And there is actual change if thechildren’s plans are implemented and the children’schoices become choices of the city. A prerequisite forchange is the willingness by local authorities and pub-lic opinion to develop child-friendly environmental andinstitutional policies by taking steps to improve mobil-ity, fight pollution, create coordination and forms ofparticipation that effectively involve the actors con-cerned (children, municipal authorities, experts, thecommunity). In Italy, new models of governance havebeen introduced. Coordination has been broughtabout within municipalities and local networks, bylawshave been changed, institutional bodies made up ofchildren have been recognised, and children’s projectshave been developed and implemented.

To sum up, the local government has aimed toincreasingly guarantee children’s rights, officiallysanctioned and recognised by the Convention on theRights of the Child. Generally, in the Italian experi-ence there has been an attempt to treat the city as apublic asset in its entirety, as a place for living in, formeeting and for moving about. The actions have notjust affected the children’s quality of life but have alsorepresented a real added value for all citizens and achange to the city’s quality in general. The endeavour


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of creating a climate of coordination among initia-tives, experts and organizations has been pursuedkeenly nigh universally.

Nonetheless, implementing this undertaking hasmet with resistance and problems, especially insecuring understanding of the legitimacy of givingconsideration to children’s viewpoints in running andplanning the city, and treating the streets andsquares as places where children can move freelyand independently. The institutional change has metwidespread resistance, both from sectors of themunicipal government and from the public.

In particular, there have been problems in devel-oping and carrying out the children’s projects. First ofall, despite the principles affirmed, children haverarely been involved in the preliminary phase ofdesigning the projects. The method of encouragingchildren’s participation has been applied only lateron, never prior to the project planning stage. Con-verting theories of governance into social practice isthus still prevalently a matter of negotiation exclu-sively among adults, who give little or no considera-tion to actions by children.

Second, implementation of choices made by chil-dren has almost always escaped the control of the chil-dren themselves and generally been delegated toadults. Participation by the children thus starts and fin-ishes either at the stage of planning or of making rele-vant choices to present to the adults during the work-shops and councils. Among the children, in someinstances, there has been uncertainty, often mingledwith hope, sometimes mistrust, regarding implemen-tation. Where the children’s councils have even a smallbudget available, a sense of greater capacity for deci-sion is created, limited even so to a few simple mat-ters. That may be yet more disappointing, however,unless followed by a larger, institutional-type invest-ment in changing the city, and unless the children’spotential to intervene is clear from the outset.

Third, one largely unsolved problem is how todeal effectively with adolescents. The difficulties increating initiatives for and with adolescents are cur-rently considerable. Action aimed at adolescents isbased primarily on an educational approach to playand interpersonal aspects, and seeks to prevent aso-cial behaviour more than to further social participa-tion. This is indicative of how adolescence is per-ceived and presented nowadays. This is not verypromising with regard to the future involvement ofadolescents into public social life.

A complementary parameter to assess changes inthe city is to measure changes in children’s lives. Thisis an ambivalent parameter, since the same outcomemay be assessed differently. For instance, children’sscepticism towards adults is a politically negativeoutcome, but also an interesting one at the socio-psychological level since it reflects a realistic and crit-ical view of the world in the child. Conversely, real-ism developed by the children towards the feasibilityof projects can be positive politically but is much lessso at the socio-psychological level, since it leads toacquiescence and hence to less imaginative planningand less original contributions to change.

It would be particularly useful to study further theinteraction between realism and independence insocial participation by the children. Defining the rela-tionship between utopia and reality is not simple.Sophisticated levels of negotiation have to be found,so as to keep that relationship alive without the tra-ditional hierarchies between adults and children pre-vailing. Moreover, another question left open iswhether it is useful and appropriate to prevent thescepticism towards the adult world developingamong children and adolescents. In other words: is italways negative to disappoint expectations? By clar-ifying the significance given to children’s views, onealso clarifies the objective that one wishes to pursuein bringing about change.

3.7.4 Effectiveness in dissemination: thecultures of childhood and the city

One still undervalued yet particularly importantaspect is that of dissemination: making all citizensaware of the processes and outcomes of the ChildFriendly City.

Confining awareness raising to occasional events(city festivals, open town councils, meetings) is notenough to further dissemination of a CFC culture.Communication with the various categories of citi-zens (parents, teachers, local authorities, experts, thecommunity) concerning CFC processes and resultshas the potential to produce significant effects on thesuccess of the initiative. In particular, it may turnactive minorities favourable to the CFC into majori-ties capable of initiating action.

Encouraging child participation is still a widelymisunderstood practice, which has not been cultural-ly accepted by society, in the same way that, forinstance, the education of children has. One impor-tant obstacle lies in the fact that the results are oftennot visible and their interpretation ambivalent.

3.7.5 Effectiveness of planning

There is evidence of a tendency towards movingslowly from the preparation and study stage to con-crete project implementation phase. This calls foraccurate monitoring in all project cycle phases of thecoherence between objectives and results. Monitor-ing all phases enables corrective measures to bedeployed to ensure fulfilment of objectives.

At present in Italy, child-friendly changes in theoverall municipal governance system often still takesecond place to individual interventions on children.The attention of public opinion and the municipalauthorities, planners and others involved often cen-tres on services for children as a sector rather thanchanges on the city as a multisectoral system.

Implementing effective social and environmentalpolicies in Italian cities is made complicated primari-ly because the municipal administration and publicopinion readily accept cultural change that involveschildren, but not the involvement of children to bringabout overall change. In this way, Italian CFCs post-pone change, trusting primarily in the moulding offuture citizens rather than tapping the child as a


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resource today. In this context, while no city hasaimed primarily at changes in the environmentalarea, awareness of the need for cultural and institu-tional changes has led various cities to prefer cultur-al interventions. In consequence, sometimes for rea-sons of strategy and image, sometimes because ofthe effect of Law 285/97, but in general certainlybecause of a traditional culture of childhood, priorityhas gone to educational activities and hence a prolif-eration of training workshops.

It is therefore necessary to reflect on the similari-ties and differences among the various areas ofchange proposed for an Italian Child Friendly City(environmental, cultural and institutional). The link-ages between these areas are numerous, and ques-tions about priorities, and especially about theweight to assign to each change, remain open. Clear-ly it is important to create deeper interactions andmore fruitful coordination among institutional, envi-ronmental and cultural changes, with an eye to theoverall design of Child Friendly Cities, somethingthat in Italy still remains largely implicit for manyexperts, municipal authorities and local planners.Further effort to define objectives and greater clarityin the relations between the political, scientific andtechnical spheres are required.

3.8 Guidelines for encouraging

child participation

The following guidelines are derived from an analy-sis of the Italian initiatives to encourage children’sparticipation in the context of Child Friendly Cities.

● Favour consistently the encouragement of partici-pation over the imposition of a normative or cog-nitive educational approach.

● Clarify the roles of the adults and of the childrenand adolescents, so as to ensure that all are awareof what they are doing and the reasons why theyare doing it.

● Coordinate effectively and efficiently the variousadult roles involved: municipal authorities, facilita-tors, planners and experts, educators, parents.

● Use forms of communication that effectively elicitchild participation, encouraging children and ado-lescents to act as independent individuals.

● Create a balance between idealism and realism,guaranteed by open negotiation among facilita-tors, experts, municipal authorities, technical staffand, as a priority, children and adolescents.

● Ensure coordinated formulation by the childrenand adults involved of the criteria for and possibil-ities of planning and implementation without jeop-ardising children’s independence. This makes itpossible to clarify together with the children therules for effective participation and the degree offeasibility of their projects.

Moreover, with the aim of raising awareness andmobilising the community, the planning and man-agement team has to

● Know the social context, the difficulties andresources it presents accurately, utilising existinginformation sources or producing original, scientif-ically based analyses.

● Create awareness by providing information andfeedback to all, not just those directly involved.

● Rely on active stakeholders (children, parents,teachers, technical staff, experts) to act as pressuregroups, to contribute to general public opinion andindirectly to put pressure on the more recalcitrantsectors of local government.

● Raise the awareness of the whole municipal govern-ment, and secure its convinced financial and politi-cal support, in particular secure an adequate budgetfor carrying out the initiatives decided upon.

3.9 Good practicesand desirable changes

3.9.1 Good practices

The strong points that create the prerequisites for thefuture development of Child Friendly Cities in Italyare the following:

● Effective conversion of the concept of girls’ andboys’ citizenship into visible and widespread socialpractice.

● Wider spread encouragement of children’s partici-pation, with a significant involvement of expertsmotivated and equipped for cultural change.

● A new, more sophisticated view of protection,understood as support for the encouragement ofchild participation and hence as action that pro-motes well-being rather than alleviates suffering.

● A move from the idea of standardized welfare ser-vices for the community to that of services orient-ed towards individuals capable of participatingindependently.

● A new area planning policy and the trying out ofnew forms of good local governance, based onsystems of local, national and international coordi-nation.

● Environmental transformation begun in manycities, with some examples of successful innova-tions that point the way to further change.

● Political will on the part of the Italian governmentand consequent commitment to implementing thenational programme.

3.9.2 Desirable changes

Some changes could help in reaching the objectivesand avoiding sudden changes of direction and disap-pointment of the children’s expectations, bringingpositive effects on their motivation to participate.

● The centrality of the child in the vision of municipalauthorities and planners ought to be more system-atically and continuously integrated with the con-cept of the overall quality of life in the city.

● Interventions ought more systematically to adoptmethodologies based on child participation tomake children’s and adolescents’ roles more pub-


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licly visible, substituting them increasingly for cog-nitive and normative educational methodologiesand thus encouraging young people’s motivationand interest. In particular, one should avoid thefrustration for children and adolescents of seeingtheir own independent participation denied defacto, because of a lack of due consideration fortheir proposals.

● The children’s and adolescents’ views ought always tobe taken into account at all stages of the project, notjust at the stages of preparation and implementation.It would be desirable for children to be involved inmonitoring and evaluating processes. The childrenought to be clear as to the agenda in which they arepartners with the adults, reaching a consensus on the‘rules of the game’ for building a Child Friendly Cityand the roles associated with them.

● To facilitate these processes, training in method-ologies for encouraging child and social participa-tion ought to be more coordinated, widespreadand systematic. More adequate training of munici-pal authorities, technical staff and facilitators mightmuch improve the level of internal coherencebetween objectives and practices.

● Local authorities ought increasingly to perceive thecity as an integrated system to create stable socialpolicies based on a wider social consensus andparticipation.

● Once such foundations are established, the propor-tion of children and adolescents involved in themost innovative actions (participatory planning,child councils, encouraging mobility) should beincreased; these initiatives should also, at leastpartly, replace more traditional ones, the relevanceof which now seems less in the Child Friendly Citycontext.

● Coordination among local authorities, experts andother stakeholders ought to be improved, so as touse time and resources more efficiently and toovercome cultural resistance in various sectors ofthe local government.

● Greater commitment ought to go to action in thesocial and environmental areas, with explicit refer-ence to the CSDBB Project. It should not be for-gotten that so far only a minority of SustainableCities for Girls and Boys initiatives have securedrecognition.

● Strategies to inform and motivate public opinionought to be more incisive to avoid the risk of pro-jects remaining restricted to a cultural and politicalelite.

● Last but not least, preventing social exclusionought to be placed centrally in a CFC agenda.


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47Innocenti Research Centre

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ISBN: 88-89129-25-5

All correspondence should be addressed to:UNICEF Innocenti Research CentrePiazza SS. Annunziata, 1250122 Florence, ItalyTel: (+39) 055 20 330Fax: (+39) 055 20 33 220Email general: [email protected] publication orders: [email protected]: www.unicef.org/irc and www.unicef-irc.org Website Child Friendly Cities Secretariat: www.childfriendlycities.org(Electronic versions of this publication can be downloaded online)

Italian Committee for UNICEF Onlus Via Palestro, 6800185 Rome, ItalyTel. (+39) 06 478091Fax: (+39) 06 47809270Email: [email protected]: [email protected]: www.unicef.it

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