PERSON  FIRST  -  Erasmus  Eu Project Events  Brussels 17 – 18 April 2024
Wednesday    17  April		MULTIPLIER  EVENT 1      -   venue   to   EESC    meeting room  VMA22               Rue Van Maerlandt 2,  1040 Bxl
09:00 - 09:30		Welcome &  registration         link to registration form  Person First
09:30 - 10:40		PERSON FIRST Project:   -   Background and introduction Luigi Leonori,  President SMES Europa -   Key findings from the Person First project. Ides Nicaise & Eveline Teppers HIVA KULeuven -   Comment and synthesis  by Milena Angelova  member  of  EESC
10:40 -11:00		COFFEE BREAK
11:00 -12:10		1.  Social assistance  and services  - Elīna Ālere Fogele  EAPN Latvia - Jacopo Lascialfari, Coord.Toscano Marginalità
12:10 - 13:20		2. Health phisical - psychical - social  - Vesna Svab, psychiatrist, SENT  Ljubjiana (online)  - Elias Barreto, Hospital Júlio de Matos  - Lisboa
13:20 - 14:30		LUNCH
14:30 - 15:40		3. Home  and  Housing -  Sina Rasilainen   -  ARA   -  Helsinki -  Pierre  Ryckmans  -  Infermiers  de  rue - Bxl
15:40 - 16:00		coffee break
16:00 - 17:10		4. From assistance to participation -  Maria Moudatsou   PRAKSIS  - Athens    tbc -  Paulo Silva Santos   NPISA    -   Lisboa
17:10		FINAL  COMMENTS Each thematic session would  start with  a 'keynote' followed by Q &A  and discussion on recommendations
MULTIPLIER  EVENT 2      venue European  Parliament   (PHS7C50)                                                     60 rue Wiertz,  1047 Bruxelles
Thursday 18 09:00 –09:30		REGISTRATION
09:30 – 09:45		WELCOME  address  by Cindy Franssen (PPE) and Mercedes Bresso (S&D),        co-chairs of the intergroup on the fight against poverty at the European Parliament .
09:45 – 10:45		Person First  Project - Background and  introduction    Luigi Leonori, coordinator of  Person First project - Key finding from the Person First project    Ides Nicaise - Eveline Teppers, HIVA - KULeuven
10:45 – 11:00		Coffee break
11:00 -12:00		ROUND TABLE    with   -  Yves Leterme: The European Platform on Combating       Homelessness -  EPOCH           -  Fernando Chironda : European  antipoverty  network   -  Fatima Awil  - MHE-SME : Health and Mental Health    -  Freek Spinnewyn -  FEANTSA  :  European Federation     of National  Organisations Working with the Homeless     -  Michele  Levoy  -  PICUM  Platform international    cooperation on undocumented Migrants
12:10		CONCLUSION      Luigi Leonori (SMES EU) Ides Nicaise (KU Leuven)   Yves Leterme (chair EPOCH)

 

SOME REFLEXIONS & QUESTIONS  

we assist in Europe to these contradiction more  it  increases  the  number of the people in situation of poverty and  extreme  poverty, more their problems and needs are complex both social and sanitary, strictly tightly connected  and  more decreasing
the services, the personnel, the budget, the investments and the strategies.   WHY  ? ? ?

 

The passage from daily worry to desperation and passage to an action of violence against himself or against others, damaging himself or others, this passage above all if in situation of preceding vulnerability, it is not so rare then.

Worsening of mental condition aggravates the way a person functions at family, at work etc. which ultimately may result in relations falling apart, loss of work, consequently loss of a home, loss a family, loss health and pleasure of life.

This in turn is an extreme stress in itself with all the consequences stress has on a person and his/her mental condition.

So we have in fact a vicious circle, a spiral where the original financial stress of austerity generates a psychical suffering, and those mental problems generating further material deprivation and further mental degradation

The  ‘life expectancy’  in homeless is reduced of the around 40/50%, living in permanence in a situation suicidal that at times it concludes also with acting out.

Barriers and discriminate access to health /mental health services :

    -  Access to the health and mental health services in the city and in hospital; it’s very difficult for these people, because of the different barriers, both individual and institutional

   - Impossible for workers in health services to offer more time because the reduction of personnel and bureaucratisation of the time, that make impossible to stablish a very relationship

    - Unpreparedness to approach and to work with this people, outreaching where they are

• - Reduction of beds and available of professional workers ;

    - Difficult collaboration for integrated and sustainable care and cure ...

    - Frequent burnout of the operators, working with these persons

   
PERSON  FIRST  and  DIGNITY - WELL-BEING projects is  an opportunity to:

 1.   Engage with and so understand better, the voice of people who have
       become socially  excluded and, effectively, silenced.
       Analyse and to mostly evaluate where the problem him finds

2.   Highlight non-observance of fundamental rights.

3.   Cultivate connections between health and social providers of services.

4.   To clarify the consequences of reduced funding for services for
       marginalised people –  both in the short and long-term.

5.   Reduce the negative consequences because of discriminatory and
      stigmatising  social policies.

6.   Lobby European Institutions, regarding priorities in social & health
      policy.

7.   Identify and disseminate information about innovative practices.

8.   Plan, prepare and pilot training, capacity building, exchanges experiences and personnel  among European colleagues that work  across health and social services with socially  marginalised people.

9.   Facilitate networking between public and private, social and health/mental health  services.

10. Reach practical operational arrangements, beyond institutional and official policies.

 

 

ETHOS classifies homeless people according to their living situation:

•   rooflessness (without a shelter of any kind, sleeping rough)

•   houselessness (with a place to sleep but temporary in institutions / shelters)

•   living in insecure housing (threatened with severe exclusion due to insecure tenancies,  eviction, domestic violence)

•   living in inadequate housing (in caravans on illegal campsites, in unfit housing, in extreme  overcrowding

700,000 homeless people in Europe. (2021)

“a home for all by 2030”   :   the  EU  has launched the European platform on  combating  homelessness !...

“the most extreme form of  social exclusion”..... is homelessness  declaration  of  Nicholas Schimdt  EU Commissione

HOME sweet home : missing or is not sufficiently emphasized the affective dimension, because even in an unhealthy house you can live very strong and intense emotional relationships that allow will grow strong and  healthy.

mental health   as  an integral and essential component of health, indeed, there is no health without mental health.  Mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders.

The WHO constitution states: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a  contribution to his or her community. In this positive sense, mental health is the foundation for individual well-being and the effective functioning of a community.

 

More than 450 million people suffer from mental disorders WHO
More than 970 million 1/8 people suffer from mental disorder WHO
Many more people have mental problems. 
Mental health is determined by socio-economic, biological and environmental factors.

 

The vulnerability  is not a characteristic of homeless but of person everyone  has his Achilles heel but not  all of them are injured.

 

Q U E S T I O N S  :   about  EMERGENCY  SERVICES  are the interventions

•  integrate social & health ? . . . ,

•  coherent with real request of person in need ? . . .,

•  respectful of the dignity ? . . . ,

•  accessible to marginalized and excluded people ?...,

•  are sufficient and adequate services in emergency center?