History:

iaOBERfcs was founded on June 25, 2003, by the Fondazione Emanuela Zancan and Boston College in partnership with 28 experts from around the world.

Since then, an annual international seminar has been organized, where members can present their research. When possible, the seminar is joined by a related event open to the professional and scholarly public. In the past, seminars have been held in New Zealand (Wellington), Italy (Volterra, Malosco, Padova, Venice, Rome), the United States (Boston, New York), England (Oxford), Israel (Jerusalem), Spain (Oviedo), Hong Kong (China).

Today, the Association has locations in Padova, Italy, at Via del Seminario 5/A and in Malosco, Italy, at the Centro Studi E. Zancan (Viale Alpino 8)

Aims:

The Association, in order to promote evaluation of services for children and families, pursues the following aims:

  • to promote cross-national research and comparisons on theories, methods, and techniques for outcome-based evaluation and research;
  • to facilitate the exchange of experiences and knowledge on these subjects through meetings, seminars, and international workshops, as well as using publications and sharing knowledge through the web;
  • to conduct research and studies on outcome-based evaluation; and
  • to disseminate the findings of the aforementioned experimentation and studies.

Activities Around the World:

The Association’s activities began before 2003. We met in Volterra (2001) and Boston (2002) and then – with the formal constitution of the Association we continue to meet annually in many different places: Malosco (2003), Abano Terme (2004), Quarto d’Altino-Venice (2005), Tarrytown, Usa (2006), Wellington, New Zealand (2007), Padova (2008), Oxford, England (2009), Volterra (2010), Malosco (2011), Glasgow, Scotland (2012), Jerusalem, Israel (2013), Padova (2014), Malosco (2015), Oviedo, Spain (2016), Hong Kong (2017), Rome (2018), Spain (2019), on-line (2020-2021).

Since 2003, when possible, the annual seminar has been joined with a related event open to wider professional and scholarly public. Members of the association have been committed to organise these important events with high motivation and engagement:

  • The 2004 seminar in Abano Terme (near Padova, Italy) was followed by a Conference in Florence at the Istituto degli Innocenti on “Outcome Evaluation in Services for Children and Families: Learning and Comparing Experiences”, organised in collaboration with the Tuscany Region. This resulted in a publication gathering the papers presented at the Conference.
  • The 2005 seminar in Quarto d’Altino (Venice, Italy) saw the launch of the International Association website and the organisation of two research seminars held in Malosco (Italy).
  • The 2006 seminar in Tarrytown (New York, Usa) was preceded by an international conference, “An International Perspective on the Mental Health Needs of Children and Adolescents in Care; Implications for Policy, Practice and Research” organised by the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service and The Children and Families Institute for Research, Support and Training (Children FIRST).
  • The 2007 seminar in Wellington (New Zealand) was preceded by a conference devoted to professionals working in the field of children and families in New Zealand and organised in collaboration with the New Zealand Families Commission. After the Association seminar there were two further workshops provided by Association members with Families Commission staff.
  • The 2008 seminar in Padova (Italy) was combined with the European Scientific Association For Residential and Foster Care for Children and Adolescents (EUSARF) International Conference on “Assessing the ‘Evidence-Base’ of Intervention for Vulnerable Children and their Families — Cross National Perspectives and Challenges for Research, Practice and Policy.” This collaboration between EUSARF, Fondazione Zancan and iaOBERfcs resulted in a conference with almost 450 participants, 300 of them coming from abroad.
  • The 2010 seminar in Volterra (Pisa, Italy) was combined with the International Conference: “Qualitative and quantitative approaches for assessing outcomes: international perspectives” held in Firenze at the Istituto degli Innocenti and in collaboration with the Tuscany Region.
  • The 2011 seminar in Malosco (Trento, Italy) was combined with an international conference on “Integrating evidence-based practices in child & family services: lessons learned from different countries”, in collaboration with the Free University of Bozen (Italy)
  • The 2013 seminar in Jerusalem (Israel) was organised in connection with a seminar for professionals: “Outcomes of Children Living in Poverty”. In the same year, the 7th annual seminar of the International Foster Care Research Network was organised in Padova on the theme: “Foster care in Europe: what do we know about outcomes and evidence?” in connection with the international conference: “Foster care in Europe: what do we know about outcomes and evidence?”.
  • The 2014 seminar held in Padova (Italy) was connected to an International Conference on: “Child Wellbeing and the Impact of Poverty on Children’s Outcomes” organised in the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Fondazione Zancan.
  • The 2016 annual seminar “Exploring the connections between evaluating outcomes and evaluating social impact” was organised in Oviedo (Spain) in connection with the Eusarf Conference “Shaping the future”.
  • The 2017 annual seminar “Evidence deriving from Outcome and Impact Evaluation” and the international conference on “New Perspective for Outcome-based Evaluation and Research on Family and Children’s Services” were organised in Hong Kong in collaboration with the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
  • In 2018 activities covered different audiences: the annual seminar on “Outcome-based Evaluation and Research in 15 years: The role of our Association in the coming years”, the international workshop on “Opportunità per crescere bene: Servizi per l’infanzia in dialogo” and the Iaober international conference on “Effective Measures to Cope with Poverty: Lessons from Italy and Other Countries”.
  • In 2020 an International virtual conference on “The Challenges Of Outcome Evaluation In Human Services” was organized by ACRI (Association representing Foundations of banking origin and Savings Banks), Fondazione Emanuela Zancan and iaOBERfcs aimed at exploring diverse approaches to evaluation used in different parts of the world.