Dignity & Health/II-2Projects      
ROMA 09-12 February 2005
d o c u m e n t s

2.   Commission’s proposal for a renewed Lisbon strategy  [03/02/2005]

Working together for growth and jobs - A new start for the Lisbon Strategy
 
The European Commission presented - on 2 February - a new strategy aimed at revitalizing the so-called Lisbon agenda. In its communication to the Spring European Council, entitled Working together for growth and jobs - A new start for the Lisbon Strategy, the Commission confirms that, five years after its launch, the Lisbon Strategy is not on track to deliver the expected results.

The Commission sets out an action programme for the EU and its Member States to generate « sustained economic growth and more and better jobs ». It calls on Member States to launch a new EU partnership for growth and jobs at the Spring European Council of 22-23 March. The Commission believes that a renewed drive and focus on the following (fewer, “achievable”) objectives are necessary:

• Making Europe a more attractive place to invest and work;

• Developing Knowledge and innovation for growth;

• Creating more and better jobs, by attracting more people into employment in particular through action to reduce youth unemployment (European Youth initiative) and modernising social protection systems, as well as by increasing the adaptability of workers and enterprises and the flexibility of labour markets through removing obstacles to labour mobility.

The Commission’s proposal identifies responsibilities, sets deadlines and measures progress. It makes a clear distinction between actions at Member States and European Union level. The Commission proposes a complete overhaul of how the renewed Lisbon Strategy is implemented:

• A single National Action Programme for growth and jobs, adopted by national governments after discussion with their parliaments. These National Lisbon programmes would become the major reporting tool on economic and employment measures. “This will greatly simplify the myriad of existing reports under the Open Method of Co-ordination, which the Commission will review”, stresses the Commission.

• Member States would appoint a Mr or Mrs Lisbon at government level charged with co-ordinating the different elements of the strategy and presenting the Lisbon programme.

This simplification at national level would be mirrored at Community level by integrating in a single package the existing economic and employment co-ordination mechanisms (under the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines and Employment Guidelines): this will be done in a Strategic Annual Report which will be published annually in January. (Source: EC)

More info at: http://europa.eu.int/growthandjobs/index_en.htm                                          top
 

3.   THE  SOCIAL REGULATORY PLAN  OF THE CITY OF ROME

SYNTHETIC FRAMEWORK OF THE SOCIAL REGULATORY PLAN  OF THE CITY OF ROME

The law no 328/2000, indicate the basic goals for a social service integrated system,
the services have new tasks and resources, and represents a highly integrated public-private initiative.

In the Plan there are six areas of action each with it’s own objectives and measures:
   1.      welfare actions
   2.      system actions
   3.      integration actions
   4.      joined planning between Urbanistic Regulatory Plan and Social Regulatory Plan
   5.      objective projects (plans  for target group: child, older, immigrants..)
   6.      structure of the stretch budget

 In the welfare actions we have six actions:
   ·        access to services
   ·        civic responsibility
   ·        responsible system of welfare
   ·        social inclusion and autonomy
   ·        welfare residential (type: elders, minors, homeless…)
   ·        intervention of social emergency

This structure assures both the unity of service for the overall dimension of the citizens of Rome  for all its citizens and for specific local needs (welfare for individual district).

Our objective is to assure all social services at essential levels to all.

Dignity and Health-Rights and Access, What does the Municipality of Rome do?

 
MEASURES-SUPPORT FOR THE HOMELESS

 We can estimate that around 2.000 people live on the streets and around 6.000 live in temporary accommodation and emergency shelters. 1/3 have psychiatric disturbances, 1/3 have alcoholism problems, and a 1/3 is made up of drug addicts.

Extension of rights

Residency represents a right/duty of each citizen, in spite of his or her living conditions. Residency allows one to be a citizen (renew documents, get the pension, exercise the right to vote).

Since 2002 the homeless people can obtain Official Domicile at theirs District Via Modesta Valenti, an official domicile for the homeless  instituted in memory of an elderly woman who died in privation at the Termini Station after an ambulance didn’t care for her because she was dirty.

In Rome there are 19 official domiciles Modesta Valenti, one for each District.

Dignity to have first aid

In February 2002  the Social Operation Room was launched with a view to guaranteeing rapid reaction in social emergencies: it is free of charge and active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, holidays included.

All citizens of the municipality of Rome can access the service by applying directly or after being brought to the attention of the relevant authorities. No formal requirements have to be met to use it. Applications are to be filed by telephone, calling a toll-free number. Emergency actions target all socially disadvantaged people.

The SOS service consists in three integrated operational levels:

1.      Operation room it is located in the premises of the municipality of rome’s 5th Department. Experts are always ready to take calls, analyse and interpret them, assess any request, define and activate actions accordingly.

2.      Mobile Units   9mobile units are always operational in the field, and are permanently connected to the operation room through a satellite system. The personnel of each mobile units consist of two vocational trainers and a home carer with a total of 36 staff working in shifts. Those units react rapidly to any request by carrying out the required actions on the spot, meanwhile activating the relevant institutional actors in order to identify the resources available. Thanks to their constant presence in the field, mobile units can identify situations of marginalization that would otherwise be undetectable; they contact invisible users, who would otherwise only become visible when the situation is unmanageable, thus playing an extremely significant preventive role.

3.      Office experts these social workers or psychologists act
constantly as links with local social and health services.

Structuring/Organization

Those without a fixed abode are mainly an itinerant population. This shows the importance for a flexible articulation of the specific services geared towards them, therefore there is a need to provide the services for these people in two areas: citizen and municipal.

Citizen related services for a population in transit which has not obtained residency or, even if with a residency, does not live in the defined territory

    
Social emergency

Primary and secondary shelters, the people who use these centres, night and day, are those which do not have significant connections with the area or they do have connections in the area which do not coincide with those at the shelter structures. These in fact, in relation to the type of population which they turn to, have relationships with more than one town hall.

Possible economical hotel structures.

Services at municipal level or in proximity, geared towards a permanent population:

Family house: the area importance has shown the necessity, within a social reintegration programme, that this type of structure interweaves connections with the neighbourhood to allow a connection between the area and the people received.

Specific shelter for the resident family nucleus.

Economic hardship - right to housing
One of the most significant prevention areas regards the housing policy. Resolution number 163/98 which offers economic support, rent, has an important prevention function, necessary to avoid the entry into the circuit for people with no fixed abode to those who have just lost a home and the consequent chronic process of social exclusion.

 Proposals – Priorities
 a) Set up a permanent work table dedicated to people with no fixed abode open to the
     workers in the sector. The table will also be open to people who live with hardship.

 b) Carry on to increase the overall places in the first shelter (or called basic level)
     at a citizen level.

 c) Continue with the policy of small sized shelter structures spread throughout the area.

 d) To expec t a system which allows the permanent stay of guests in the secondary shelter
     centres not any more on the basis of a prefixed time in a contract, but rather on the basis
     of intervention projects carried out periodically to check the situation, with also the
     participation of all the interested area services.

 e) Work for the projects. The micro project, as a starting point for the taking on the person
     with no fixed abode, which allows, a constant verification of the team’s work and the
     programme of the person taken on.

 f) Training of the social workers who work in the extreme poverty sector.

Dignity to have medical treatment: in Rome there is a list of doctors on health insurance panel available to work with homeless

MEASURES-SUPPORT FOR PEOPLE  WITH MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS

Rome is a capital city without a mental hospital. In recent years much has been done in the mental health field, thanks to the joint cooperation between the City Council and the five Mental Health Departments of the Local Health Units. The collaboration with the departments has allowed, among other things, the setting up and running of 24 day centres, 16 social assistance residences and 19 personalised apartments. Certainly, regarding the needs and the new urgencies, the work to be done is still notable, which needs greater coordination of the forces in the field, so that all can use the services, the treatment, the resources. The collaboration and support initiatives between the council authority and the Local Health Units have identified different sectors:

Day Centres

There are 24 so called intermediate structures, located in a capillary way within the whole citizen area, they mainly receive serious psychotic patient, in the 20 to 45 age group. Each centre is open for eight hours daily, from Monday to Friday, with the presence of a multi skilled team from the Local Health Unit responsible for the therapeutic rehabilitation project and the health related activities, both for the workers within the social cooperatives, chosen by the Local Health Units, which manage the recreation and expression activities as well as the professional training. Within each centre it is foreseen, meetings between the workers and the patients and specific meetings with the families and the users to verify the work carried out and to build a rapport of collaboration, important for the development of the patient’s therapeutic project.

Residential Stay

The residences are low assistance level structures, directed towards patients who have reached a sufficient level of autonomy and who have a discrete possibility to experiment with normal living conditions. The residences are categorised into two types:

-  16 social assistance residences (low assistance level structures and/or self managed). They are structures which can receive up to a maximum of six patients. They represent a housing solution outside the protected psychiatric circuit and which foresee, organised assistance in daily living through the presence of trained personnel and/or volunteers for the support activities in daily life.

-  19 personalised apartments. They represent housing solutions for users with a sufficient level of autonomy. The project is carried out in owned apartments rented to the same. The increase in personalised housing is foreseen (from one to four people), that is the housing which allows to progressively leave the psychiatric structures for a definitive social integration.

-  These are projects which aid the work integration of citizens with mental problems both, both through the setting up of new productive activities managed by the social cooperatives, and the setting up of schemes to recover and re qualify degraded green areas. articulated in the by now long term different experimented forms (short breaks, trips, week end) constitutes a fundamental opportunity to verify the rehabilitation and therapeutic interventions undertaken by the services during the year.

Training, awareness and prevention  these are initiatives geared towards the associations and family members, social health workers, social cooperatives, and even all citizens to encourage a cultural change and the change of attitudes regarding mental illness to increase the experience of social and employment reintegration of citizens with mental health problems.      

Transfer of economic cheques  the economic contributions for the realisation of personal projects (work placement, economic support, residency…) are paid annually to the psychiatric patients.

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