The 23rd European Social Services Conference will explore the theme of Building partnerships to improve lives, with an emphasis on building integrated social services for people with care, health, educational, housing and employment needs. This year’s conference takes place in Lisbon from 6-8 July and is organised in cooperation with the Government of Portugal. Among other policy areas, a number of the featured workshops will focus on the topic of integrated services, in line with other ESN events in 2015.

Integrating services

Integrating services can produce positive outcomes for users, carers and the organisations involved, as it can create the conditions for services to provide a person-centred approach and respond more quickly and effectively to users’ needs.

Services integration allows for more efficiency in services provision, which ultimately results in a more harmonious experience and better outcomes for service users.

This is a highly relevant area of discussion due to the European Commission’s focus on the need for high quality, integrated and personalised services as part of the 2013 Social Investment Package.

Workshops on Integrated services

Evidence-based practice examples of integrated services will be the focus of workshops from Canada, Italy, Portugal and Spain. In each case, the workshop intends to provide examples of how services have been integrated through the use of technological tools and knowledge-sharing in order to bring about increased efficiency and improve the lives of service users.

Undertaking large-scale service reform in times of fiscal restraint; integrating services in Peel, Ontario, Canada
The Municipality of Peel, Canada

• The Regional Municipality of Peel will present their system of integrated services based on a one-stop service-delivery model which covers mainly social assistance, employment, housing, early learning, child-care and community grants programmes. It supports simplified access, efficiency savings, effective resource allocations, improved advocacy, and program investments. An external evaluation of this system pointed at the benefit of offering “a valuable roadmap to other governments”.

The Unified Access Point: coordinated responses to complex needs in the Campania Region, Italy
Consorzio dei Servizi Sociali Ambito, Italy

• The 28 municipalities of the Avellino district have implemented the Unified Access Point. There, the user can benefit from a coordinated response, and receive social services after the nature and intensity of their needs has been evaluated by a multidisciplinary team. Constant monitoring has shown how strongly this organic, integrated model has benefitted users, for instance by reducing the time spent waiting for care. Moreover, it has been accompanied by cost reduction, less red tape and more efficiency, making the UAP a good example of an effective, integrated, user-centred model.

‘Impossible’ Problems and Joined-Up-Governance
Instituto Padre António Vieira and Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, Portugal

• Recognising that complex problems are not always responded to in a comprehensive way across different agencies, the public social services for Lisbon (Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa) has tested new collaborative working arrangements and integrated governance using a shared IT platform and building a tool kit for dissemination across the service. Examples will include children and families and homelessness.

Local partnerships for health and social integrated care: Lessons from Catalonia, Spain
Government of Catalonia, Spain

• In 2014, the Government of Catalonia issued a new Inter-ministerial Social and Health Care and Interaction Plan in order to achieve person-centred integrated care and put at their disposal the most suitable resources for their needs. This plan is locally tested and implemented as pilot projects by 9 Local Partnership Projects. These local pilots have been assessed and recommendations for integrated care have been developed. This workshop will present local experiences from the project and will discuss assessment tools, information sharing, evidence in health and social care and workforce development.

Read more about the wide range of workshops at the 23rd European Social Services Conference (in English, français, español, italiano, deutsch, and português).