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Following a new momentum at EU level on active inclusive with the European Pillar of Social Rights and the Social Investment Package. ESN organised a seminar in cooperation with the Austrian Presidency of the EU and our Austrian member, the City of Vienna, focusing on how social services are supporting people furthest from the labor market to find and retain jobs empowerment and autonomy.

Transcript:

We hear about the experience of people who have had to overcome barriers to accessing their right to work. Professionals in the field tell us about how we can advance towards more inclusive activation and who the main players are in making that happen. We see the case study of the Back to the future Eco Farm Project which employs young people on minimum income, including asylum seekers.

Annemette Kjolby Kristensen, Florist, Nordiq House // User supported to start a business: ‘One of the things that I found, being unemployed is that the system is very inflexible. I was granted something like €6,700 to start my own project. When you’re unemployed in Denmark, you can’t actually set up your own business. It is illegal and you will get punished if you do so, and that’s what I did, and it worked!

Marco Buchinger, User of Services and Self-advocate, Lebenshilfe Salzburg: ‘In the Article 27 of the UN convention it is clearly stated that everyone has the right to work. I simply wanted to exercise my right.’

Vikki Walters, Strategic Consultant for Disability Employment, Gloucestershire County: ‘The first thing that needs to happen is that social services professionals, people working in employment services and individuals themselves need to raise aspirations around employment and then services start to provide individualised support packages that help people with the most complex needs move into employment.’

Peter Stanzl, Social Planning Director, Vienna City Council: ‘Inclusive activation is not a concept that is aimed at just one organisation. It is ultimately about coordination between different stakeholders- at strategic level as well as operational level. In the city of Vienna we finance joint measures with the Public Employment Service. We also coordinate measures between the city, the schools, the Public Employment Service etc- utilising the guaranteed training service.

Konstantinos Papachristopoulos, organisational Pyschologist, Athens City Council : ‘Procedures come out of processes, trust and cooperation, thus in our case, coordination emerged by a processes where different organisations providing different services focused just on people’s needs.’

Alessandra Marini, Senior Social Protection Economist, World Bank: ‘I think social workers can play one of the most critical role in this integration of social services. They can help them develop a personalised plan towards exiting the difficulties that they’re facing, they can try and link them with existing social services, and most importantly, they can monitor their progress towards a successful integration.’

Alfonso Lara-Montero, Chief Executive, European Social Network: ‘For activation policies to be successful, social services are a prerequisite, for integrating groups with complex social problems and social needs into the labour market and more broadly, into society. It’s not just about financing, it’s not just about providing social benefits, it’s also about addressing the fragmentation of competences between employment and social services, and it is also about the analysis of the multidimensional needs of people with complex needs across Europe.’

Back to the future Eco Farm Project

Supported by the European Social Fund and the city of Vienna. Employing young people on minimum income including asylum seekers

Nikolai Ritter, Leader of the Eco Farm Project: ‘Inclusion is something where you really meet the people, where you really learn from each other, and you include also things that are new for you as they include things that they learn here in our country. I think if we only think about integration, we will not solve the problem.’

At ESN we think #InclusiveActivation

This seminar was organised by European Social Network in cooperation with the Austrian Presidency of the EU and the Department of Health and Social Planning of the City of Vienna.