“Many social services remain insufficiently involved in the preparedness phase, and their lack of participation is directly related to a less inclusive response when a crisis hits”. This is what Alfonso Lara-Montero, CEO of the European Social Network (ESN) said during 2026 ESN Annual Seminar on Crisis Preparedness and Management in Social Services, which took place in Helsinki, Finland, on the 24 and 25 September.
Over the past years, Europe has seen a stark increase in unexpected crises: from the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, severe climate-related crisis, cyberattacks, refugee crisis and many more.
At the forefront of all these crises is where both social services, and the people using them, find themselves every day. People in need of social services are always the most affected by these crises, therefore ensuring that social services are well prepared to handle crises and continue supporting people during and after them is key to reducing harm to the population. Being prepared implies not only having the funds to address unexpected events, but also having the skills, the human resources, and the necessary coordination with other essential services to ensure an effective response that reduces as much as possible the potential negative effects a crisis can have on people using social services, first responders, and social services themselves.
Therefore, this year’s ESN Seminar delved into understanding how to better improve the role social services can play within crisis preparedness and management mechanisms, and how to ensure they are better prepared as organisations to effectively address crises without leaving anyone behind.
Integrating social services in crisis preparedness and management across levels of government
This year’s Seminar took place in Finland, a country known for its long culture of preparedness, making it a particularly relevant model for improving crisis preparedness and management in other countries. Among key measures to ensure a more effective response that is inclusive of the needs of everyone in society, Finnish panellists of the Seminar, including the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health of Finland and the Finnish Ministry of the Interior, highlighted the importance of trust and partnerships across sectors including public private partnerships, and particularly including social services from the very beginning of preparedness to ensure a response that leaves no one behind.
Best practice from across Europe also showcased the importance of strengthening cooperation between social services and other key services involved in both crisis preparedness and management to improve crises responses. Building relations and trust before the crisis starts, sharing information across services to create a common vision, ensuring the continuity of care and support, and adapting plans after every crisis, were also highlighted as fundamental to improving preparedness.
Improving organisational agility and developing strong systematic risk and threat assessments also emerged as fundamental actions to develop, to learn from past crises and avoid a crisis escalating into a disaster like, for example, during the floods of 2024 in Valencia, Spain. Ulla-Carin Moberg from the City of Gothenburg also underscored the importance of involving legal experts to determine which decisions are unlawful and accurately coordinate and channel initiatives from members of the public who want to help.
Addressing a crisis without leaving anyone behind
The Seminar also put focus on how to better protect the needs of the most vulnerable when a crisis hits. Examples from ESN Members like Carr Gomm, the City of Zaragoza, the City of Athens and the Nordic Welfare Centre, showed how not only being well-coordinated with other key emergency agencies, but joint staff training and involving the community and people using social services, already in the preparedness phase, can significantly improve crisis response and make it much more inclusive. “Participation is protection, and it only works if it is built before the crisis” said Merethe Løberg from the Nordic Welfare Centre on child participation in crisis preparedness plans.
Moving towards a resilient Europe
The Seminar finished with a look towards the future, where panellists from all levels highlighted the importance of preparedness, anticipation, and trust as key elements towards resilience, as well as maintaining relationships with volunteers after a crisis finishes to ensure their knowledge is preserved. Good interagency cooperation, funding and inclusive guidelines and protocols were also underscored as key essential elements to improve crisis response.
Overall, the Seminar also demonstrated the value of the ESN Crisis Management Framework for Social Services, developed last year through the ESN Working Group on Transformation and Resilience. The European Commission, represented by Julia Steward-David, Climate and Resilience Adviser at the Directorate- General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO), together with other panellists from across Europe, recognised the added value the framework, and the implementation of its five key components, can have in helping social services become more resilient to crises.
Following the Seminar, ESN will soon publish a briefing encompassing all these learnings and will present it in a webinar open to all ESN Members at the end of the year and explain how we can provide support to organisations wishing to put in place a similar framework in their organisations.
