"It is not easy to reverse the trend, but it certainly takes collective awareness, because the birth rate issue, although it is growing a great deal in the media and in public awareness, is still not at the center of public opinion and it is essential to multiply initiatives like today's. Another fundamental thing is that there are not only the initiatives of the government, which will certainly do its part and has already begun to do so in the first budget law that we faced in the midst of difficulties and with really tight deadlines, but we have invested a billion and a half on the family; it's important that all the players in the field, from local governments to businesses, from nonprofits to unions, put the issue at the center". These are the words of Eugenia Maria Roccella, Minister for Family, Birth and Equal Opportunities, to the 9Colonne paper on the sidelines of the presentation of the national network “Municipalities Friends of the Family”, underway today at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. "The Trentino model," she added, "is now an almost historical model that has given good results and should be expanded. On that model one can involve, for example, many other family-friendly municipalities, which can become a model for the whole of Italy, and it is precisely in the sense I was saying, that is, the involvement of all the actors in the field, starting from the territory; municipalities can do a great deal because they are, as is always repeated, the institutions closest to people and their needs, to families, so from there a restart can really begin".