Project Description
The project stems from a shared analysis conducted with the Inter-District Office for External Penal Enforcement of Milan (UIEPE), which identified the need to strengthen the uptake of alternatives to detention through integrated and sustainable case management. Two priority needs emerged: on one hand, expanding social and employment inclusion opportunities for people in detention or subject to external penal enforcement measures; on the other, strengthening the organisational capacity of Municipalities to activate permanent local networks oriented towards inclusion, active citizenship, and restorative justice.
Building on two local networks of Municipalities interested in directly addressing the issue of employment inclusion — centred respectively around the Bollate Prison and the Monza Detention Centre — the project provides integrated case management actions, educational support, and the activation of training pathways aimed at establishing internships within Municipalities, with a focus on ESG sectors and the green transition.
In parallel, capacity building initiatives are planned for Municipalities (not only partners) to develop competencies in managing inter-institutional processes, participatory planning, and the promotion of community justice.
The project targets adults, elderly people, and women subject to judicial authority measures — with the possibility of travelling to Municipalities to carry out their internships. Participants may be referred by the UIEPE in accordance with existing agreements. Among the main expected results: the implementation of personalised reintegration pathways, an increase in sustainable and empowering employment opportunities, and the development of two replicable local models of inclusive governance. The dissemination across all Lombardy Municipalities of competencies and approaches for inclusion, including through Community Service Work (Lavori di Pubblica Utilità).
Partnership Composition
The partnership was built with the aim of ensuring maximum coherence with the intervention lines set out in the Call and with the need to integrate educational, social, employment, and institutional dimensions within a coordinated local system. The two Municipalities, Cinisello Balsamo (MI) and Desio (MB), are both project partners and will take on a role of activation and coordination of their respective local territorial networks, composed of neighbouring or nearby Municipalities.
This configuration responds both to the need for proximity to the Bollate Prison and the Monza Detention Centre, and to the need for territorial and administrative continuity within existing collaborations. Each partner Municipality has strong representativeness with respect to the project’s areas of intervention: it has structured social services, collaborates or has collaborated with justice and external penal enforcement services, and has accumulated prior experience in areas such as social inclusion, accompaniment, the promotion of active citizenship, and the management of internships as a host organisation.
The partnership is further strengthened by Pandora Cooperativa Sociale, a third-sector organisation with long-standing experience in the employment inclusion of people in detention, in-prison training, and case management, and by AnciLab as an expert partner in the delivery of professional development pathways within local authorities.
The complementarity between public bodies, accredited training and employment providers, and non-profit organisations underpins the operational balance of the project and ensures multidimensional case management for beneficiaries. The project also draws on a support network of municipalities that will contribute their own resources to provide internship hosting opportunities.
This network strengthens the capacity of Municipalities to build stable inclusive contexts, and represents a distributed safeguard for the continuity of interventions over time. For the implementation of actions related to the dissemination of community justice initiatives and models, the reference partner is ANCI Lombardia, selected for its institutional role in representing Municipalities and its consolidated experience in promoting models of territorial co-design and active citizenship practices.
The project’s support network also includes the Municipalities of Concorezzo (MB), Villasanta (MB), and Cusago (VA), as well as the Parco Ticino authority.
The intervention is implemented within the framework of initiatives promoted under the 2021–2027 Cohesion Policy, and in particular the Regional Programme co-financed by the European Social Fund.
