Child Poverty and Welfare: Social services work to protect and support vulnerable children

ESN brought together directors and senior practitioners in children's services to discussed the role of local services in combating child poverty and ensuring children's welfare at a seminar in Copenhagen in March.

The seminar was attended by fifty participants from ESN and the Føreningen af Socialchefer i Danmark (FSD - union of Social Directors in Denmark) which co-organised the event. We were joined by presenters from the Danish government, the European Commission and Save the Children Denmark, represented by Mimi Jakobsen, a former Danish Minister of Social Affairs. The seminar comprised a half-day conference, field visits around Copenhagen led by Ole Pass from FSD and an interactive working session focusing on the European and national policy agenda.

One of the main issues to emerge was the multiplicity of factors behind child poverty and exclusion. Participants felt that the understanding of child poverty had to move beyond an income-led definition in order to tackle other issues such as poverty of aspiration and opportunity and inherited household worklessness. Social services are particularly conscious of their responsibilities to children currently or formerly in the care of social services, e.g. unaccompanied children seeking asylum, to ensure that they have the same opportunities as others.

The practitioners saw themselves as having a key role within and beyond the traditional social work duty to protect children. This wider role, reflective of a broad understanding of child poverty includes early intervention and prevention methods with parents-to-be and with families with chaotic lives (complicated by drugs, alcoholism, indebtedness), inter-agency working (e.g. SSP in Denmark, a structured cooperation between schools, social services and the police).

ESN is currently drafting a statement emerging from the seminar which will form the basis of social services' contribution to the child poverty debate at EU level.

Presentations from the seminar, including good practice, are available now on the child poverty pages>>

ESN Seminar: Long-Term Care, Prague, 18-20 July 2007

ESN is continuing its work on social inclusion and protection with this seminar, which will bring together practitioners working with older people to discuss demographic change, changing needs and policy responses. Presentations on the opening day will review current good practice, provide a service perspective on long-term care and make connections with current European and national policy directions.

On the second day, delegates will engage in two policy-focused sessions led by European experts looking in turn at national policy in a comparative European perspective (using National Strategies on Long-Term Care and Health as a base) and the EU child poverty and rights agenda. There is a real opportunity for the group to review policy together, learn from policy and practice in other countries and to contribute through ESN to policy debate and policy-making at European and national level.

Further information and a draft programme will be available on the ESN webpage on long-term care from mid-May. ESN has a very limited number of funded places at this seminar available for senior practitioners and directors in older people’s services - priority for these places will be given to ESN members. If you are interested in attending, please contact the secretariat as soon as possible, explaining your interest and expertise in the subject. We may be able to offer additional self-funded places - please contact the secretariat for details at the earliest opportunity: Contact us here>>

Flexicurity: European Commission to develop guidelines on labour market flexibility and income security

The European Commission organised a high-level conference in Brussels recently looking at flexicurity. The conference is part of the Commission's agenda on flexicurity which included a Green Paper on Labour Law, an Expert Group on Flexicurity and discussions by heads of state and government in the European Council. This work is being carried out with a view to presenting guidelines on flexicurity to support EU Member States policies in this area.

This conference brought together around 400 participants from government, civil society, research, trade unions and business organisations to look at flexicurity from their different perspectives. The Commission and the Expert Group will take up the lessons of the conference in their ongoing work. Publication of the Expert Group Report is due within a few weeks and a Communication from the Commission in June.

ESN would be interested to hear from social/employment services who have been involved in implementing flexicurity at a local level. Contact us here>>

ESN Inclusion e-newsletter Archive 2007

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