Social and health care services

Eurodiaconia works on many areas related to the provision of social services. Social Services of General interest (SSGI) is the term used to describe social services that are seen to be of importance to the general population. The European Commission has described them as including services provided directly to the person that play a preventive and socially cohesive role, such as social assistance services, employment and training services, social housing, child care or long-term care services.

Eurodiaconia focuses on working to ensure that not-for-profit social and health care providers operate in a supportive environment, where their importance is recognised.

• Eurodiaconia policy paper on social services (2009)
• Social Services Europe on personal and household services/employment in the social service sector (2012)
  
• Social Services Europe policy paper “Job creation potential in the health and social service sector” (2012)

Eurodiaconia monitors the impacts of EU legislation and how it is implemented on the provision of social services in Europe, in particular the impact of EU State Aid and Public Procurement rules, which regulate how contracting authorities can finance social services.

• Briefing on new Public Procurement Directive (2014)
• Social Services Europe Briefing on the European Commission’s proposal for a new directive on public procurement  (April 2012)
• Social Services Europe initial position paper on the proposal for a new directive on public procurement (April 2012)
• Eurodiaconia briefing – subsidies and grants for social services – the potential impact of EU state aid rules on diaconal service providers (March 2013)

Eurodiaconia members strive to provide quality services and Eurodiaconia has been actively engaged in the EU debate on the quality of social services since 2005. Eurodiaconia has contributed to EU initiatives on quality and has developed its own document on quality.

• Eurodiaconia Principles for Quality Diaconal Social Services, available in Czech, English, French, German, Serbian and Swedish (2009).

Eurodiaconia and its members decided to develop one particular elementof these principles, namely service user participation and empowerment. Members felt it was important to facilitate mutual learning and to promote these ideas and drew up a toolkit to this effect.

• Eurodiaconia toolkit for user participation and empowerment in social services, available in English, French and German (2010).