The welfare designer profession, in Italy

The profession

A welfare designer does not deliver services directly. They design them together with those who will run and use them, facilitate collaboration between different organisations, and define from the outset how the resulting change will be measured. Their work typically follows six phases: reading needs, mapping actors and resources, co-designing with communities, defining the economic model and governance, setting indicators through a theory of change, and accompanying implementation, monitoring and reporting.

In Italy the welfare designer is not a regulated profession with a register. It falls under Law no. 4 of 14 January 2013 on professions not organised in orders or colleges, which allows practitioners to form professional associations issuing quality certifications to their members.

What the portal publishes

• A professional profile (mission, principles, activities, contexts, responsibilities, legal framework), versioned and open to public consultation.
• A competence framework: five areas, specific competences and three proficiency levels, with a self-assessment tool.
• The method in six phases, with guiding questions, tools and expected outputs.
• An encyclopedia of 77 entries on Italian welfare law, actors, evaluation and social policies, each with sources and a revision date.
• A charter of principles and a model engagement for organisations commissioning a welfare designer.
• A network of practitioners, the first step towards a professional association.

All texts are in Italian and published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.

Contact

Editorial team: redazione@welfaredesigner.it. Enquiries from researchers, institutions and professional bodies in other countries are welcome.