Abstract

Work-life balance is a central question in post-modern societies that is particularly emphasised by social investment policies and strategies. In the Italian context, difficulties in reconciling work, care commitments and other aspects of private life are still strong, especially for women. The program Alliances for the Family, implemented by the Veneto Region since 2016 aimed at the construction of local networks to respond to the needs of the different family realities engaged in care tasks in an innovative way. Although there is no commonly accepted definition of social innovation with well-defined elements and indicators, the research investigates the innovative capacity of a programme focused on work-life balance. Through two focus groups it was possible to collect the opinions of 16 project manager regarding the innovative dimensions of the Alliances and the effort of putting into action related to conciliation. The results outline that project manager considers the work in the dimension of the territory and the construction of new networks to be innovative, while the difficulty of acting in conciliation emerges due to the lack of a cultural change on the subject both in the population and in public administrations.