A new Community of Practice focused on care and proximity has been launched by Torino Social Impact, developed through collaboration with Fondazione FARO and Fondazione Piemontese per la Ricerca sul Cancro.

A person undergoing care spends approximately 95% of their time within their community and only 5% with healthcare professionals. This proportion reflects a shared, collective responsibility.

It is from this premise that the new Community of practice has been established, with the support of Camera di commercio di Torino and Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo. Its objective is to foster a shift in perspective: to view illness not as an isolated event, but as an experience intersecting with other forms of vulnerability, including poverty, social isolation, educational fragility and mental health.

The Compassionate City paradigm

Marina Sozzi, Head of the Cultural Office at Fondazione FARO, introduced the initiative starting from the experience of palliative care, which by definition adopts a holistic approach to care — encompassing clinical, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions.

Illness, she noted, affects not only the patient but also their family and the wider community. While only 5% of time is spent with healthcare providers, 95% is spent with family members, friends and informal networks — where quality of life is truly shaped.

The Compassionate Cities movement, widespread in English-speaking countries, expands the concept of the “healthy city” promoted by the World Health Organization in the 1980s, explicitly including serious illness, end of life and grief as dimensions to be addressed within urban policies. Turin is positioning itself to become the first major Italian city to structure a pathway in this direction.

The compassionate city is conceived as a living laboratory: mapping existing resources, identifying unmet needs, co-designing shared responses and measuring their social impact through rigorous reporting. The process will be participatory, with the involvement of expert Iolanda Romano.

Alessandra Gianfrate, Head of Institutional Relations at Fondazione Piemontese per la Ricerca sul Cancro, highlighted how forty years of supporting care and oncological research activities in Candiolo have made clear the deeply community-based nature of illness. Field experience shows that care is not exclusively a healthcare act, but a process involving families, relationships and proximity networks, which function as an essential social infrastructure.

Engaging the network

A total of 26 organisations from the Torino Social Impact network took part in the meeting. During a facilitated discussion session, participants shared motivations and existing practices supporting vulnerable groups.

A strong convergence emerged: creating structured spaces for dialogue and knowledge exchange is itself a form of urban care.