Investing in Children’s services- Improving outcomes across Europe

26 November 2015, Paris, ChildONEurope seminar

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European Social network

John Halloran

Chief Executive

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Challenges for Europe

• Financial crisis and impact on children and families

• Welfare systems in need of reform

• Protection + investment

• Involving children and young people

• A social and economic imperative

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Investing in Children

• 2008 start of the project

• 2010 report ‘Breaking the Cycle of Deprivation’

• 2011 seminar 'Investing in children: Early years and child

protection'

• Peer review process provided a platform to share experiences

and ideas – special focus on the effect of economic crisis

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Spain

• First Plan for Childhood and Adolescence 2006-2009

• Crisis: Cuts due to fiscal consolidation affected the quality of

education, prevention and support services for children at risk of

exclusion

• Regions responsible for planning and providing children’s services

• Regions present varying degrees of development of laws and

regulations

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Example of Catalonia

Emergency measures• Increase free school meals budget• Increase emergency social assistance budget• Protocol for detecting child malnutrition• Rent payments in situations of risk of homelessness • Financial support for families with children and adolescent with a child vulnerability

• Long-term measures• Commitment signed: Government of Catalonia, economic and social stakeholders,

local authorities and parliamentary groups to ensure compliance and monitoring of priorities and challenges in the Pact

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Example of Catalonia

• Social participation of children

• Social inclusion, quality of life and equal opportunities

• Health; Education and values; Family; Media.

• Policies system for children and adolescents

• National strategy for planning and assessing policies for children and

adolescents, with special emphasis on children who are at risk

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France

• Child poverty: 19.6% of under-18s live in families

whose income is less than 60% of the mean wage

• Efficiency of public transfers: 1st in public spending

(3.7% of GDP), only 14th in child poverty overall

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France

Measures• 10% of all available places reserved for poor children

• Multi-disciplinary assessment of the family’s situation, parenting skills,

impact on the child & community resources

• Extending open-assistance measures (1.9% children in child

protection; 50% in open-assistance measures)

• Open-setting measures: cooperation with parents & wider

family/community

• Independent representation when best interests of the child different

from those of their parents

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United Kingdom

• Responsibility for welfare and benefits’ assessment and payments

managed by the UK government

• Policies related to education, health and social care for children and

families are devolved to local authorities

• Local arrangements in place to coordinate working between health,

education, social services and justice system.

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United Kingdom

Getting it right for every child

• Put into statute in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014

The Named Person

• A single point of contact for families and other professionals where there are

concerns around a child

The Child’s Plan

• A single plan for any child requiring additional support from services

Child Protection Committees

• Local boards that bring together key agencies

• Coordination of child protection procedures: shared responsibility

• Coordination of child protection training, assessment and review

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The Netherlands

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• Social care reform in implementation since 1 January 2015

• Reasons in the field of child care

• Growing number of children and young people in care

(7.5% per year), mental health care (12.5% per year) and

special education (17.5% per year)

The Netherlands

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Principles

• Dutch municipalities have the coordination of most services

in the social domain

• “One family, one plan, one coordinator”

• Focus on the role of the family and social networks,

prevention and better service coordination and integration

Conclusion

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What next?

• Report published January

• Launch at the European Parliament

• 24th European Social Services Conference World Forum,

The Hague

Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union

20 -22 June 2017

Thank you!esn-eu.org