Between scientific evidence and practical experience. The difficult path of implementation of citizenship income in relation to the Covid-19 emergency: a new challenge to professional social work in Italy.

The proposal aims to investigate the implementation process of the measure Income of Citizenship (Decree Law 2019, No. 4) and the slowdowns suffered by territorial social services and by the families benefiting from this measure as a result of Covid-19. For this purpose, it is useful to provide a preliminary definition of emergency understood as an event that causes extensive and profound damage, which goes beyond the capacity of any community to cope with it and therefore requires external intervention (Perez, Thompson 1994). This definition has prompted professionals to confront greatern flexibility of work by rediscovering the role of technology as a facilitator (Mattiacci et al., 2020). On the practical side for the implementation of the IoC measure, from May 2019, an IT platform has been made for the management of PaSI (Pact for Social Inclusion) and implementation of PUCs (GePI Platform). This is a tool intended to facilitate the activity of taking charge, but also to promote the uniformity organisation, i.e. the quality and compliance of the process and related procedures to the model envisaged by standards (Scientific Committee Report, 2021). It has also helped professionals in tutoring and continuous training in the emergency; moreover, technology has enabled the management of remote interviews, in contrast ICT is not only intended as a facilitator for the implementation of the measure: for example, the percentage of TDs (Territorial Districts) accredited on the GePI platform reached 99.7% only in July 2020, after the end of lockdown (ibidem, 2021). Several critical issues were encountered: the large quantity of telematic applications submitted, alongside the atavistic problem of understaffing of social services in the territory (Tassinari, 2013); governance problems (Scientific Committee Report, 2021); territorial disparities in the provision of ELAs (Essential Levels of Assistance) to be understood as a set of appropriate and enforceable supplies of goods and/or services dimensioned to respond to predefined needs, in a not- minimal form, but appropriate, through an effective organisation (Lippi, 2013). In the face of the critical issues outlined above, the new challenges awaiting professionals working within the territorial social services could be: to define and coordinate all the resources available, identify common planning tables, activate experimentation and research with participatory planning and management of interventions and with periodic verification of results. These new welfare scenarios have determined the need for a reconfiguration of professional performance based on the process of empowerment and active citizenship (Mordeglia, 2013).