HUGS aimed to: • provide partner organisations with support in terms of knowledge, skills, and tools to improve their daily work with new mothers; • offer a theoretical and methodological framework enabling them to design an innovative training course on the role of the Volunteer Support Worker, to be implemented at a later stage; • create a European network of organisations working with women, children, and families to share experiences, knowledge, and good practices, with the aim of promoting the role of the Volunteer Support Worker at the European level. Adult Education: HUGS improved access to high-quality learning opportunities for women volunteers, enhancing their skills as support workers. This initial phase laid the foundation for a future Europe-wide pilot. Social Inclusion: The project addressed the isolation of mothers by introducing trained volunteer figures who offered early support and fostered intercultural understanding. Organisational Innovation: HUGS promoted learning spaces through cooperation among partner organisations. Famiglie per la Famiglia served as a hub within a broad network of families, NGOs, schools, and public institutions, aiming to build new partnerships at the European and local level.
HUGS was a small-scale partnership for cooperation in the field of adult education, lasting 16 months (February 2024 – May 2025). The partnership consisted of the lead organization Famiglie per la Famiglia Onlus (Italy) and Vital Aid Foundation (Netherlands). The overall objective was to share knowledge, experiences, and good practices in order to define—and subsequently train—a volunteer support figure to assist new families and new mothers, with a particular focus on migrant women. The partnership applied for this project to respond to the growing need for structured support for new families and, in particular, for new mothers from migrant backgrounds. Many of these women experience social isolation, limited access to information, and cultural barriers during the early months of motherhood. The project aimed to address these gaps by defining and promoting the role of a trained volunteer support figure, capable of offering practical and emotional guidance to new mothers, thereby fostering inclusion and well-being.