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|a Following the call in 2015 from the European Parliament to introduce a Child Guarantee and the subsequent request to the Commission in 2017 to implement a Preparatory Action to explore its potential scope, the Commission launched a study in 2018 which aims at examining and making proposals as to how a specific programme could best be developed in order to fight poverty and social exclusion amongst the EU’s most disadvantaged children (i.e. children living in precarious family situations, children residing in institutions, children of recent migrants and refugees and children with disabilities and other children with special needs) and to ensure their access to the five key policy areas identified by the European Parliament (i.e. free healthcare, free education, free early childhood education and care (ECEC), decent housing and adequate nutrition). An online targeted consultation was conducted as part of the study. Its main goal was to gather views on the feasibility, efficiency and overall benefits of a Child Guarantee in order to help formulate the final recommendation in this regard. The consultation lasted 6 weeks – from 14 January 2019 to 22 February 2019 – and the link to the questionnaire was sent to more than 1,150 selected people. These consisted of managers in civil society organisations working with children or concerned with child well-being, officials in public authorities at national and sub-national levels, researchers and academics). The link was, in some cases, forwarded by the contact person to associated organisations. In all, 301 valid replies were received. The questionnaire began with questions to identify the profile of respondents in order to put the replies into context. It then set out a set of multiple-choice questions and, where relevant, the respondents were invited to clarify their replies and to add any further comment they wished to make in a limited number of words. The questionnaire ended with an open question, asking respondents to describe the kind of instrument that they think should be put in place at EU level. Once the consultation was closed, the validity of the information provided was checked by identifying and coding missing replies, removing duplicates, checking for possible inconsistencies in the answers given to different questions, and trying to detect any ‘campaigns’ by identifying identical replies to the open questions. Following this, the replies to the multiple choice questions were analysed and the replies to the open questions were divided according to the main themes and issues covered. This synopsis presents the results of this analysis.
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