European Social Network’s (ESN) response to the European Commission’s Public Consultation on Enhancing the Strategy of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities up to 2030.

ESN welcomes the European Commission’s commitment to enhancing the Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities up to 2030. This paper sets out ESN’s recommendations for an updated strategy that ensures a comprehensive, person-centred and community-based approach to social services, with a focus on improving inclusion and quality of life for people with disabilities.

In short, the second half of the EU Disability Strategy should:

• Focus on deinstitutionalisation and community care in driving all actions of the disability strategy and underlining the essential role social services have in the implementation process.
• Promote the EEG proposal to launch an ‘EU Knowledge Exchange in Deinstitutionalisation Practice’.
• Aim for strong EU-level leadership through a European Commission coordinator for community care, a cross-DG Working Group on the transition to community care and an advisory group to the European Commission on community care.
• Promote prevention and early intervention approaches for children with disabilities, ensuring the European Child Guarantee invests in early intervention and prevention programmes for children with disabilities and their families.
• Strengthen support to modernise public service delivery through technology, AI, and digital tools, through financing technology innovation home initiatives.
• Create specific workforce programmes focusing on person- centred and community care training.
• Adopt a specific monitoring mechanism using the European Social Services Index (ESSI)
• Strengthen cross-sector and multi-level cooperation across local, regional and national authorities, employment services and social services to enable labour market inclusion for people with disabilities.