Network intervention and social workers’ personal support networks: a survey in the Italian context

This article presents the results of a study conducted in Veneto, an Italian region, on a sample of social workers. The research examines the link between the characteristics of social workers’ everyday personal support networks and their propensity to use the network intervention methodology in their professional practice. The network intervention methodology is a set of techniques that enable social workers to help people taken into care by social services by activating and/or reactivating their daily support networks. Therefore, this paper seeks to understand whether the characteristics of the daily support networks that social workers personally have affect the trust they place in the networks of the people they assist in overcoming their situations of need. The research used Personal Network Analysis to identify the characteristics of social workers’ personal support networks and a series of questions to record their propensity to use the network intervention methodology in their professional practice. The survey shows that about one-third of social workers place network intervention among their most frequently performed activities. Positive links are found between the size of social workers’ personal support networks and the importance of network intervention, and between the ego-centric density and the tendency to adopt a bonding approach to network intervention.