"The well-being of children: The impact of changing family forms, working conditions of parents, so cial policy and legislative measures - WELLCHI NETWORK" is a coordination action under the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission (2004-2007).

The purpose of this project is to set up and operate a network to improve our knowledge of the impact of changing family forms, the working conditions of parents, and social policy and legislative measures on the well-being of children and their families. Its goal is to bring into focus, co-ordinate, channel and publicise the results of research that has already been carried out through the organisation of international workshops and conferences. These events will bring together a number of professionals from different specialist areas in this field, in order to debate and compare their research and experiences, to tackle the ways in which different kinds of public policy and legal reform can ameliorate the conditions of children and to explore the best strategies for the exploitation and dissemination of relevant research to wider audiences. Debates will hinge on the extent to which marital instability and other processes of family transformation, in contemporary Europe and in the context of different institutional and policy arrangements, can affect the welfare of children and lead to divergences in outcomes.

Considering that the eradication of child poverty is a precondition for the future of a society based on social cohesion, this project will contribute to the objectives of the priority thematic area 7, particularly addressing some of the topics included in Research Area 2 such as such as the analysis of the close connections between the accumulation of socio-economic risks, current and past inequalities, quality of life and access to services and the understanding of the causes of the intergenerational inheritance of inequalities. It is expected that different kinds of synergies will follow:

  1. Integration and exploitation of knowledge derived from previous research;

  2. Exploration of new lines of research;

  3. Avoidance of national fragmentation of research;

  4. Statistical harmonisation;

  5. Strengthening and integration of the European Research Area