Welcome to the fifth edition of the European Social Network (ESN)'s e-newsletter dedicated to promoting social inclusion. This time round, we:

National Action Plans// Crucial time to influence the NAPs/Inclusion!

The NAPs are nearing the final stage of consultation in many countries. The next few weeks represent the final chance for social services to have their vital role in promoting social inclusion recognised in this key policy document and so influence national politicial priorities and goals. This is therefore your final opportunity to make a concrete contribution, e.g. in the form of good practice examples or by drawing attention to a key issue neglected in the NAP.

Experience from ESN members (e.g. the Flemish association of directors of social welfare centres) who have been involved in the NAPs has proved that the responsible government officials value participation from representatives of social services: they know that they can draw on your expertise to make sure that the NAP fully and accurately reflects the reality of social exclusion and action to combat it in your country.

ESN monitors the preparation of the NAPs across the EU: you can see our latest update on the preparation of the NAPs as well as a contact list of responsible officials here.

ESN would like to hear from you about your organisation's participation in the NAPs consultation process in your country. We would like to feature of this in the July e-newsletter. If you would like to contribute, please contact Stephen Barnett: info@socialeurope.com.

Second ESN Inclusion Seminar// Venice, 20-21 July 2006: Antidiscrimination and Integration

Building on the success of the Barcelona seminar, this second seminar in our inclusion programme will bring together representatives of social services and experts in the field from all levels of government to exchange best practice and experience. We will also review the preparation of the National Action Plans on Social Inclusion 2006-2008. Our speakers include Walter Zampieri of the European Commmission and Jan Klienbannink, a national expert in the Netherlands on integration issues. Delegates will also discuss how ESN as a network can best disseminate the lessons learned from the seminar to the attention of European and national policy-makers and to their colleagues in social services.

All places for this seminar have now been taken. Following the seminar, a set of policy recommendations will be drafted and a seminar report brought out, which will be disseminated in the July/August inclusion e-newsletters.

Third ESN Inclusion Seminar// Metz, 25-26 July 2006: Social and Employment Activation

The final seminar of the first year of the ESN Social Inclusion Programme will be held in Metz on 25-26 October. The first day will be a hosted as part of the biennial congress of the Union Nationale des Centres Communaux d'Action Sociale (UNCCAS), the union of local social welfare centres which work in villages, towns and cities across France. This joint day - likely to be attended by over 800 delegates - will be allow ESN and its partner UNCCAS to raise awareness of the EU Social Inclusion Process among local representatives and practitioners of social services in France's 36,000 communes.

ESN is currently in the early stages of arranging presentations by its members on various topics within the seminar theme of social and employment activation. We have planned for contributions from various countries, who have developed integrated social and employment services, such as the Netherlands and Norway. A representative of the European Commission will present a recent communication from the Commission on active labour market inclusion, which may lay the way for EU involvement in supporting return to work of those furthest from the labour market.

We will soon make information available on the ESN inclusion website about the Metz seminar under "activation". More news on this in the next e-newsletter.

Good practice examples// Antidiscrimination and Integration

As part of our preparatory work for the Venice seminar, we present here examples of good practice from local and regional social services in the area of antidiscrimination and integration of people with disabilities.

The Honeycomb Project and Upper Limits, Leek College, Staffordshire, UK

The Honeycomb Project is a social business that provides real work and work preparation skills for young people with learning disabilities. The Project is essentially a partnership between the Honeycomb Centre, and Upper Limits, an indoor climbing centre, which offers activities for groups and individuals. They are managed by Leek College in partnership with business, community and educational representatives who form a management group. It offers young people with learning difficulties the opportunity to meet and interact with a variety of people through their work in the Upper Limits centre. The strength of the project is that young people are workers and are in the position of providing services and helping people access a resource. This experience, it is hoped, would open up the world of work to them, and assist their integration, in a broader sense. This example taken from draft UK NAP 2006-08; for further information, see: http://www.leek.ac.uk/

Active case-management, a new system for people with disabilities, Senat Berlin, Germany

Berlin's regional authority, the Senat, is in the process of revolutionising the way it provides services to people with disabilities. The fundamental principle of the new approach is to orient services towards the needs of users, which requires that service users are actively involved in decisions about the services provided to them by different organisations. The ultimate objective is to assist people with disabilities as far as possible to live a self-determined and independent life. This is where personalised case-management plays a central role, with a case-manager acting as an advisor on the range of services available and a mediator between the service provider and the service user. The case-managers, who are currently going through a new training programme, will of course face the challenge of reconciling the services which users want to have with the available budget. The Senat hopes that the system will ultimately assist progress towards the use of personal budgets for services users in Germany. This is drawn from a workshop presented at the ESN annual conference. For further information, see "New approaches in case management for disabled people in Germany" on the website: http://www.socialeurope.com/english/e_conferences.htm#vienna

Integration into an ordinary working environment of people with disabilities, Municipal Social Welfare Centre, Vichy, France

Vichy's CCAS (centre communal d'action sociale) cooperated with the CAT (centre d'aide par le travail) has put in place a scheme for several disabled people to join the team which manages the day care centre for older people "Les Mésanges" in Vichy. After an introductory training system, they joined the regular team to assist the older people in daily tasks such as grocery shopping, sending letters, maintenance of house and garden, as well as helping out with various workshops e.g. on embroidery and sewing. Their participation is of considerable assistance to the regular team and has helped to build up people skills and, more broadly, to open up the world of work for disabled people. This limited scheme has led the CCAS and the CAT to consider broadening the scheme to other areas and acvities. For further information, contact ESN.

ESN annual conference// Vienna, 19-21 June 2006: Young and Old in an Ageing Europe

ESN held its annual conference in Vienna in mid-June. The conference was well-received by the 350 delegates attending from 25 European countries. The themes of the plenary sessions progressed from an assessment of the demographic challenge to the implications and possible responses of social services to that challenge. The plenary sessions were complemented by workshops covering a broad range of topics from the involvement of local authorities in EU policy on long-term care for the elderly to looking at the use of smart technology in home care for the elderly.

ESN was to delighted to welcome speakers from the European Commission, the Austrian, Finnish and German Presidencies of the EU Council besides experts in the field such as Derek Wanless, author of an important government report on long-term care for the elderly in the UK and social services practitioners such as Paul van Gorp of the Flemish city of Antwerp and Barbara Kinne of Hamm city council in Germany. The conference brought together politicians, decision-makers, experts and practitioners in social services for a broad conference, rich in substantive learning and exchange.

The conference materials (presentations, summaries etc.) are available on ESN's website at http://www.socialeurope.com/english/e_conferences.htm#vienna.

The following workshops may be of particular interest to readers for their focus on social inclusion: I/1, II/1, II/3, III/2, IV/1 (session/workshop). The next conference will be held under the German Presidency in Berlin on 18-20 June.

The next e-newsletter will come out at the end of July. It will feature:

• a review of the second inclusion seminar in Venice
• an interim assessment of the preparation of the NAPs/Inclusion
• news on the next inclusion seminar in Metz in October