Abstract

The paper presents a reflection on the social innovation of home care services for not self-sufficient older people, starting from the first insights of a qualitative evaluation research of a three-year experimentation of a new model of service promoted by Friuli Venezia Giulia Region to contrast institutionalization. This model is based on personalized intervention, citizens’ participation and co-production, and personal budget. According to this research, innovation is considered a process of change promoted and sustained by a specific cultural orientation (Moralli 2019), as an increase of social and political rationality (Donolo e Fichera1988) based on an ideational and cognitive dimension (Bifulco 2009; 2017). For this study, fifteen semi-structured interviews were performed with coordinators of home care assistance and managers of health and social services who were involved in the experimentation to collect their ideas and understand their perspectives on it. The outcomes validate interviewers’ inclination to see innovation with pre-existing cognitive categories reproducing old modalities to organize services. Hence, the paper highlights the importance of accompanying innovation with learning activities aimed at promoting and addressing subjects’ reflectivity through the expected change