Citizen Centered Social Services

ongoing

Access to services of general interest, such as education, training, healthcare, social care and social protection and inclusion, is difficult for vulnerable groups. It is especially so when they are in a difficult situation from multiple aspects. Marginalised individuals (such as third-country immigrants, homeless people, people with mental health problems, or even just lonely elderly) can be affected by a range of other issues such as lack of education, lack of employment, mental and other health problems, lack of mobility, basic social or language skills, crime, etc. Social services focusing only on a single aspect, operating within a traditional organisational structure, often cannot reach them effectively. In addition to the organisational fragmentation of social service providers, the budgets for each target are also fragmented. As a result, they cannot respond adequately to the complex problems of the target group. CITICESS focuses on reaching marginalised communities, low-income households, and disadvantaged groups by applying a new, innovative and holistic approach organising services around the target group. The project's overall objective is to improve regional/urban development policies dealing with vulnerable target groups by exchanging experiences, jointly testing innovative approaches and building the capacity of partners by identifying, disseminating, and transferring good practices. Project partners will exchange and jointly test new approaches, involve target groups in co-designing effective services and strengthen social impact. They will address their policy instruments in a geographically balanced partnership based on a carefully designed interregional learning process. The exchange of good practices and lessons learnt from a pilot action will be complemented by study visits, masterclasses and tools for planning policy improvements.

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