ABF H-LABS Project – ABF for Hospital Schools

Beneficiaries

Phase 1 – Digital – Year 2021

SIO Genoa – Gaslini Paediatric Hospital

Teachers involved on the project in the year 2021: 12
Estimate of children hospitalised per week on availability of beds: 500

SIO Naples – SantoBono Pausillipon

Teachers involved on the project in the year 2021: 6
Estimate of children hospitalised per week on availability of beds: 50/60

SIO Ancona – Salesi Paediatric Hospital

Teachers involved on the project in the year 2021: 8
Estimate of children hospitalised per week on availability of beds: 180/200

SIO Trieste – Burlo Paediatric Hospital

Teachers involved on the project in the year 2021: 3
Estimate of children hospitalised per week on availability of beds: 100/130

SIO Florence – Meyer Paediatric Hospital

Teachers involved on the project in the year 2021: 5
Estimate of children hospitalised per week on availability of beds: 200/250

Objectives

  • Create aesthetically beautiful, curated and welcoming spaces where new connections and skills can be built through rich opportunities for interaction with others.
  • Foster learning contexts that promote interaction, both face-to-face and at a distance, with their schoolmates and peer group that are present.
  • Offer suitable conditions so that each child may discover or enhance their talent.
  • Reinforce the curriculum by complementing it with an innovative design that includes art, music, and foreign languages as the backdrop for integrating and promoting new knowledge, awareness, and skills.
  • Create and maintain the conditions that make the new educational technologies tools for supporting, integrating, and enriching relationship-building, knowledge, and learning processes.

Project details

THE NETWORK

Italian Pediatric Hospitals Association (AOPI), Italian Ministry of Education

ABF ACTIONS

Phase 1 – Digital

  • Provide the ABF TeachBus: device (notebooks and tablets) libraries capable of, first and foremost, guaranteeing that the children involved are able to maintain their relationships with their schoolmates, teachers, and atelieristas. Every device will be handed over already customized with all the content and apps – which have been carefully chosen on the basis of their age group also – and will go back to the digital library ready to be reassigned, once their program of study has finished.
  • Offer the ABF Online-Labs platform: an online platform for the ABF Labs that will provide access to a vast selection of educational content.
  • Integrate, train, and coordinate the digital atelierista: a 4.0 librarian specializing in the use of new educational technologies who, collaborating with the ABF working group, will promote new and transversal perspectives on the use of technological tools for children, thereby supporting teachers and families in how to best use these devices.
  • Ensure the presence of pedagogical coordination to provide supervision, liaison and networking support for the project, to guarantee the further education of staff and overall educational quality.

Phase 2 – Art & Music

  • Upgrade, reorganize, and set up – where it is necessary to build from scratch – the spaces for the ABF LABS that will accommodate the hospital school sections in every pediatric hospital.
  • Integrate, train and coordinate the expressive languages atelieristas: professionals specialized in designing artistic and musical experiences, in foreign languages also, to support, supplement and enhance scholastic and curricular activity.

THE PROJECT

The ABF H-LABS Project incorporates and implements the intervention models that were trialled in the ABF School Network within Italian pediatric hospitals, with the aim of giving hospitalized children and students beautiful, curated and welcoming places where they can interact with others. The expressive languages of art and music are central to this and are conceived as a tool to foster, support, and promote the talent of every child. New educational technologies have also been implemented, which represent a precious tool for communication and curricular integration, with the aim of improving quality and advancing educational innovation.

THE CONTEXT

Hospital schools guarantee hospitalized children and young people the right to education and learning. In Italy, there are over 70,000 “hospital” students – those students attending the hospital schools in specialized facilities and/or at home – mainly in pre-schools and elementary schools. This rises to one million if we include children with chronic diseases, namely those who are suffering from complex illnesses.

DONATE NOW TO THIS PROJECT

Logo ABF Voices Of Program

ABF Voices Of Program

An educational program characterized by the use of music as a catalyst for developing talents and skills in young people living in vulnerable contexts, through the creation of youth choirs that foster both personal and collective growth.
It creates inclusive spaces and promotes youth leadership, empowering the next generation to take an active role in their communities.
The program is active across four continents, working in close collaboration with local teams and partners.

ABF Globalab Program

Active in Italy, the program supports the development of social-emotional skills in young people, accompanies them in their academic and professional growth, and promotes active citizenship.
It applies innovative methodologies such as learning by doing, cooperative learning, and peer education, all based on a participatory and bottom-up approach.

Logo ABF GlobaLab Program
Logo ABF Edu Program

ABF Edu Program

The program aims to develop integrated systems of education and care within school buildings (serving ages 0–19), public spaces, or areas undergoing regeneration, fostering educational innovation as a means to empower individuals and strengthen communities.

Logo ABF Edu-Care Program

ABF Edu-Care Program

The program focuses on pediatric hospitals, where it integrates education into the care pathways of children with chronic disabilities or illnesses, creating dedicated spaces that foster resilience and creativity.
It includes art, music, and digital labs, and features a partnership with the University of Florence to offer a master’s degree in education and care in hospital settings.

ABF 
Empowerment Actions Program

Empowerment programs focus on unlocking the potential of individuals who can make a difference in their communities, and on supporting actions that create meaningful impact for specific groups of people or during emergency situations.

Altri progetti
ABF Voices Of

Bambini coristi di ABF Voices of Uganda che fanno le prove
  • ABF Voices Of
  • Ongoing Projects

ABF Voices of Uganda

ABF Voices of Haiti is the pilot project for the ABF Voices of programme, which uses music and choral singing as educational tools to develop the social and emotional skills of children and young people living in situations of extreme vulnerability. The choir offers a safe, stable setting for personal growth, connection and renewed confidence […]

Discover the project >

Bambini coristi di ABF Voices of Jerusalem impegnati nelle prove con il maestro
  • ABF Voices Of
  • Ongoing Projects

ABF Voices of Jerusalem

ABF Voices of Jerusalem is part of the ABF Voices of programme, which uses music and choral singing as educational tools to foster intercultural dialogue and develop social and emotional skills. It brings together children and young people from different cultural and religious backgrounds in a shared learning experience founded on listening, collaboration and mutual […]

Discover the project >

  • ABF EDU International
  • ABF EDU Program
  • Ongoing Projects

A new ABF school for 900 children in rural Uganda

The context: the need and the challenge In rural areas of Uganda such as Nabikabala, access to high-quality education remains severely limited. Widespread poverty means that around 45% of children leave school before completing their basic education. Schools are often overcrowded, built with unsuitable materials, and lacking essential services such as safe drinking water, adequate […]

Discover the project >

ABF GlobaLab Nuovi Spazi
  • ABF GlobaLab
  • Ongoing Projects

ABF GlobaLab New Spaces

The renovation project of the San Firenze building is an operational condition for the development of the ABF Globalab educational programme: a container of projects in the field of school, career and vocational guidance characterised by the adoption of a practical-experiential methodology, which is embodied in training opportunities and experiences essentially in the form of workshops and of an interactive-cooperative nature, aimed at empowering and guiding subjects in the broadest and most meaningful sense.

Discover the project >