This year, ESN partners with the Government of Portugal to bring their annual conference to Lisbon on 6-8 July. Our 23rd European Social Services Conference will explore the evidence and experiences in cross-sector partnerships and what this means for people’s lives, service efficiency and the impact on social welfare landscapes.

Why do integrated social services matter?

Building social services partnerships for people with care, health educational, housing and employment needs can deliver a more personalised assessment of needs and improve people’s outcomes. This will hopefully increase the focus on community living and encourage better use of public funds.

Featured workshops for 2015

ESN is delighted to announce three of its workshops for the 23rd European Social Services conference:

1. Building partnerships to achieve ‘permanent placements’ for children in alternative care in Scotland
Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland (CELSIS), Renfrewshire Council (Scotland)

PACE (Permanence and Care Excellence) is a national programme for the improvement of outcomes of looked after children in Scotland. The programme aims at reducing unnecessary delays in securing permanence placements for looked after children and is delivered through a partnership with CELSIS, the Scottish government and local authorities. The workshop will present how partnerships were developed between CELSIS, local authorities and the judiciary and initial findings of the programme in Renfrewshire Council.

2. Delivering evidence based programmes for homeless young people
National Board of Social Services, Denmark
Municipality of Aarhus, Denmark

This workshop will focus on challenges and possibilities involved in the process of changing mindsets and delivering recovery oriented social services for homeless people based on social knowledge for mutual benefit. Housing First is a proven method that emphasises stable, permanent housing as a primary strategy for ending homelessness. The Danish Housing First Strategy focused on strengthening floating support services paired with the implementation of a number of evidence based methodologies for homeless people, who were being housed. Concrete experiences on how to reduce homelessness for young people aged 18-30 from the city of Aarhus will be presented. The perspectives of the workshop will build on national as well as local perspectives in a process of implementation.

3. 'Children first': Identifying and preventing child poverty at the local level
PPS Social Integration, Belgium

Children First is a pilot project launched by the Belgian government in 57 Public Social Welfare centres all over Belgium. By bringing all local actors together (Social welfare centres, day care centres, as well as schools and associations) within wide consultation platforms, it aims to proactively identify and prevent poverty among children aged 0 to 12. The workshop will present the inspiring example of the local consultation platform in the city of Kortrijk, where the social welfare centre partnered up with local organisations and citizen groups, and in Ghent, a larger city which has had to face tough challenges in addressing the diversity and gravity of situations.

For more information on this European Social Services Conference please contact a member of the ESSC Conference team: Aurélia Mandato