Social innovation is ultimately about what works for people in their communities, considering their needs and catering to them with tailormade programmes. This has been a primary takeaway from ECSILI – Empowering Communities, a project funded by ESF+ Social Innovation+ initiative after 18 months of implementation.
As the project draws to its end, it has reached 130 Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw, Poland and Arad, Romania, supporting them with their social and labour integration, prompting the ECSILI Consortium to reflect upon the strengths and weakness of the approach to support continuation. This was done through the drafting of the Updated Framework Model, a document outlining the methodology behind the transfer of the new socio-labour inclusion practice through ECSILI, with the aim to make it replicable to other contexts.
An initial framework model was drafted at the beginning of the project to support the Project Pilots and now, 18 months later, it has been updated to consider how the project has unfolded, and what lessons can be learned for others to take forward.
Building a one-to-one relationship with the local community and stakeholders
From the outset, the underlying principle behind the strategy was to match local resources and tailor support to the needs of people using services, rather than expecting individuals to adapt to the system.
As 18 months is a relatively short amount of time to pilot and consolidate a new inclusion-focused system involving multiple stakeholders, ECSILI concentrated its efforts initially as a manageable scale. The pilot mainly centred around a new professional role, the Case Manager, in the two municipalities. 8 Case Managers in Warsaw, and 4 in Arad, have supported participants in the project throughout 8 months of piloting, meeting them periodically and guiding them through their inclusion objectives.
A key lesson learned from this work is that the Case Manager should not merely be a point of reference for the participants but should also act as the point of connection with the whole community, including local institutions, non-governmental organisations and employers. This is why the Updated Framework Model places resource mapping and systemic assessment as its first core components.
Resource mapping allows us to gather a clear image of the available resources and is thus foundational to reorganising them to better serve the inclusion needs of vulnerable people. A second core component of the model is a multidimensional assessment of the vulnerable person’s needs involving different relevant professionals, from housing authorities to health professionals.
In Warsaw, one Career Counsellor and one Case Manager were assigned to each person, whereas in Arad, a system of referrals stemming from each Case Manager was set up.
These introductions alone are not enough to overcome system fragmentation. Hence why the Updated Framework Model suggests the creation of case conferences, having professionals from different sectors work on individual cases, setting up a one-to-one relationship not between an individual and its Case Manager, but between individual and community representatives.
Making progress on employment and social services provision
A crucial outcome for ECSILI is that it has made strides in the two pilot cities when it comes to collaboration between employment and social services. This was achieved by fostering professional connections between departments and agencies that previously operated in silos.
Moving forward, the Model should evolve to build durable employment opportunities. This includes skills strengthening and interview preparation courses, as week as encouraging engagement from local employers, an essential yet underdeveloped area as highlighted during the pilot.
One approach the Updated Framework Model suggests is involvement from local employers through agreements committing them to participation in the local plan. This could also allow the extension of support to job onboarding and retention, with the goal of building labour market stability for the programme participants.
Creating a path from successful pilot projects to public policy
In just 18 months, ECSILI has worked towards making the case for a new way to ensure genuine inclusion through collaboration. Rather than people being required to adapt to existing structures, services can be designed in a way that makes it possible to directly meet needs.
The outcome is a win-win. Vulnerable people are less at risk of social exclusion, and the wider community also benefits as barriers to inclusion are reduced. Support therefore becomes much more than a mechanism for individual support. It is also a strategy for strengthening connections between individuals, services and stakeholders.
Going forward the challenge is to make the practices implemented by ECSILI sustainable in practice. "We built the know how", said Vitaliy Samluyak, Employment Expert at the Warsaw Labour Office during the Final Conference of the project. "The project has given us tools, knowledge, and awareness" continued Wioleta Kalinska, Project Manager at the Warsaw Family Support Centre, "[and] we will now have to sit at the table and decide how to make continuation happen".
You can access the complete Updated Framework Model from the ECSILI Project here. For more information about the ECSILI Project, please visit the dedicated project page.
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Social Fund Agency. Neither the European Union nor the Granting Authority can be held responsible for them.
