The European Social Network (ESN), through its Transformation and Resilience Working Group, has made significant progress over the past 4 years in addressing resilience, promoting ways of managing demand, and exploring digital transformation in public social services. Building on this foundation, the 2025 Working Group meeting focuses on equipping social services to respond to a diverse range of crises, including those related to natural disasters, refugee migration, and digital incidents, with an emphasis on broader social services crisis management.
For this purpose, the 2025 Working Group meeting aims to develop a crisis management framework designed to address the multifaceted challenges posed by different crises social services have had to face over the past years. Crises exacerbate existing social inequalities, disproportionately affecting vulnerable groups such as women, children, older people, and people with disabilities. These populations often face heightened vulnerabilities, including limited access to critical resources, increased dependency on social services, and greater challenges in adapting to crisis situations. The framework should propose implementable inclusive actions that help social services to respond swiftly and effectively to these issues.
Throughout the event, participants will have the chance, with the guidance of an expert in the field, to develop the key components a social services crisis management framework should have and discuss details and concrete measures to put in place within each component. With this process, we aim to build and propose a crisis management framework that will ensure the resilience of Social Services towards crises.
PROGRAMME
Wedensday, 10 September 2025
Welcome Session
Christian Fillet, Chair of the Board, European Social Network
Karl Sander Kase, Deputy Mayor of the City of Tallinn
Crisis Management in Social Services: Latest Developments and Current State of the Art
Overview of the current State of the Art and latest trends in Crisis Management in Social Services. Overview of the work carried out in the working group so far and the main goal of the 2025 meeting.
Alfonso Lara Montero, Chief Executive Officer, European Social Network
Responding to Crisis, Building Resilience: Priorities for Social Services
High-level panel that will explore recent trends in crisis management, lessons learned from major crises across Europe and strategies to ensure resilience for future crises. The high-level panel will bring insights from the policy, academic and practitioners’ perspectives.
Moderator: Alfonso Lara Montero, Chief Executive Officer, European Social Network
Signe Riisalo, Member of Estonian Parliament, Head of Parliament’s Social Affairs Committee
Janne I. Hukkinen, Professor, Environmental Policy Research Group EPRG, Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science HELSUS
Ana Rădulescu, Associate Professor, University of Bucharest; Chief Executive Officer, CFCECAS Romania
Emergency Social Services – SAMUR Social
Presentation of SAMUR Social, a long-standing emergency response service that supports vulnerable populations in times of crisis.
Maria del Mar Ureña, Technical Advisor - Directorate-General for Social Services and Disability Care, Government Area for Social Policies, Family and Equality, Madrid City Council
Social Services Management Framework - Key Components
Discussion led by Ana Rădulescu, Associate Professor, University of Bucharest; Chief Executive Officer, CFCECAS Romania. Ana Rădulescu will be presenting the 5 key components a crisis management framework for social services should include and discuss them with participants.
Proposed components
Workforce -leadership and training
Technology & Information systems
Organisational agility and interagency cooperation
Systematic Risk and Threat Assessment
Transparency and Communication
Social Services Crisis Management: Current Challenges
Group discussion led by Ana Rădulescu, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Bucharest; Chief Executive Officer, CFCECAS Romania
1.1 Discussion in small groups of the current challenges
Participants will be divided into 5 different small groups. Each group will be discussing one key component presented by Ana Rădulescu in the previous section. Participants in each group will discuss the challenges faced based on their own experience within that particular component. One rapporteur per table will be collecting all input.
1.2 World Café
Participants will have the chance to switch tables and give their input to another group of their choice. Rapporteurs from each group will collect all the insights and keep them for the next session on Day 2, together with the ones from the previous session.
Thursday, 12 September 2025
Emergency Social Services Response Teams
Presentation of best practices from social services around Europe. The presentations cover overarching social services responses to two types of crises: refugee and environmental crises.
Moderator: Alfonso Lara Montero, Chief Executive Officer, European Social Network
Raimo Saadi, Head of Tallinn Welfare and Health Care Department, City of Tallinn, Estonia. Addressing Refugee Crisis in Tallinn
Christine Ramelot, Inspector General, Service Publique Wallonie, Belgium. Psychosocial Coordination Team in Crises
Ruta Klimkāne, Deputy Head of Social Administration, Riga City Council, Latvia. One-stop support agency for Ukrainian war refugees.
Social Services Crisis Management in Practice: Solutions
Group discussion led by Ana Rădulescu – PhD, Associate Professor, University of Bucharest; Chief Executive Officer, CFCECAS Romania
1.1 Discussion in small groups of solutions to be more resilient and prepared for future crises
The same groups from day 1 will discuss the solutions and details they would include in the component assigned to their table. The goal is to take into account the challenges discussed during day 1, both at their session and the World Café, and think of the subcomponents that need to be included in their respective components, for the framework to be effective in addressing crises. One rapporteur per table will be collecting all input.
1.2 World Café
As during day 1, participants will have the chance to switch tables and give their input to another group of their choice. Rapporteurs from each group will collect input.
1.3 Feedback Integration
Every participant will come back to their table and rapporteurs will have this time to integrate all the feedback given during the World Café.
Final Proposals & Next Steps
Session led by Alfonso Lara Montero, Chief Executive Officer, European Social Network
Rapporteurs from each group will be briefly presenting (2-3 minutes) the key proposals of their tables and the next steps to follow.
Field visit to Tallinn Migration Centre
The city of Tallinn is offering participants of the working group the opportunity to visit the Tallinn Migration Centre.