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New public health policies present social services with new opportunities and challenges. A shared public health and social care agenda is emerging around health improvement, social exclusion and regeneration. Early signs of synergy indicate that social services have a key role to play in shaping the public health agenda and in acting as a bridge between the NHS and the wider local authority.

This paper considers recent guidance on social care for deafblind adults and children issued to local authorities in March 2001 by the Department of Health under Section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970. It uses Staffordshire Social Services Department's response to the guidance as a case study to identify areas of good practice and make practical suggestions for implementation. The guidance places the responsibility for improving provision to deafblind people squarely on social services, rather than including other agencies such as health and education. The paper argues that this may be hindering the development of integrated services.

The purpose of this article’s research was threefold. Firstly, it aimed to investigate how social services professionals coped during the pandemic period by comparing their involvement in five different national contexts. Secondly, it analysed how these professionals have performed their duties according to the street-level bureaucracy theory. Finally, the third question examines social workers' strategies to guide their professional role when they may have had more discretion in their actions. The research also examined whether discretion has increased during this phase and, if so, how it has been exercised.

This article is based on the findings of the project called “Theory and Practice of Social Work in the World in Times of Pandemic”, which was funded by the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW). The project involved 11 universities across five countries in Europe and Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Spain and Sweden. The research was conducted over 24 months to analyse the practices and measures taken to protect vulnerable people by adapting social services during the extraordinary period of the pandemic. In addition, the research explored how the awareness of emergency arose among social workers and how it influenced the services delivered from the perspective of the street-level bureaucracy theory. In different countries, the level of resourcefulness of services has varied based on their recognition of the severity of the pandemic and the impact of the government’s narratives. In some cases, these narratives have been conspiratorial or even anti-scientific. Additionally, there has been a reduction in the distance between professionals and clients, increased inequalities in access to services and a positive reassessment of the potential of new professional tools, such as digital social work, in establishing a trusting relationship.

As revealed in the interviews, the elements shaping this high degree of discretion among social workers can be classified into three levels: macro- and micro- (Saruis, 2015) plus a meso-level. Each level has four significant aspects. At the macro-level, these are legislation, public information, large associationism and integration of the social services-health system. At the meso-level, these are interpretations of role performance by managers technical equipment, self-organization and community action. The micro-level pertains to personal and family situations, emotions, ethics and social workers' direct relationships with those in charge.

This study investigated how social workers responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. The data gathered sheds light on their understanding of the situation, as well as the differences in experiences across the five countries studied. However, it is essential to note that the findings may not apply to all situations or countries. Nevertheless, this research serves as a stepping stone for future studies to delve deeper into the results and explore them in greater detail .

The study highlights the crucial role of social workers as street-level workers in managing, negotiating and creating meaning in the interaction between professionals and the people they serve. This is especially relevant in Latin America. Additionally, the study emphasizes the significance of social workers as policy actors and the political nature of social work practice. The findings also underscore the importance of effective communication and collaboration between social workers, their teams and the organizations they work for. The sources cited in the study are Barberis and Boccagni (2014) and Cuadra and Staaf (2014). The research has also underscored the potential of social service workers to build networks and cooperate. Such networking can play a vital role in implementing their acquired knowledge. The study has, therefore, emphasized the importance of social workers being an integral part of the societies they serve. They need to continuously enhance their communication skills, using all the necessary tools to gain a comprehensive and updated understanding of the evolving needs of their clients. Integrating digital social work as a mode of service provision has emerged as a crucial aspect, especially in the three European countries observed. This approach has demonstrated its potential and is expected to continue being a part of services to some extent, even after the return to normalcy. However, it is essential to ensure that the accessibility and proximity of services are not compromised in any way.

An unexpected result was observed during the research: the pandemic circumstances have led to valuable reflections. These reflections can help in rethinking and recreating social services. Social workers have been given a unique opportunity to return to the essence of their profession and develop less bureaucratic and more humane ways of working. This experience has also enabled them to recover a closer relationship with the people they serve. To sum up, this study emphasizes that social workers, when given more leeway in their work, rely on cultivating and upholding relationships with other professionals, organizations and stakeholders to stay connected with the community they serve. This is crucial for ensuring the delivery of effective and sustainable social services.

The research employed a thematic analysis approach (Bazeley, 2007) to identify themes related to the concept of consciousness as derived from the field experiences of social workers. Additionally, an in-case and cross-case analysis method (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane, 2006) was used to connect themes related to individual experiences with those gathered from the overall experiences.

There is still no universal definition of the third sector in Europe, but it can be seen as including all types of non-governmental not-for-profit entities such as non-profit organizations, mutuals, cooperatives, social enterprises and foundations. This article attempts to make sense of the current shifting conceptualization of the third sector in Europe. It is based on short country summaries of the images and concepts of the third sector in 13 European countries by EMES Network’s members, first presented in 2008 (Defourny and Pestoff, 2008; nine of them were recently revised and are found in the appendix to this article.). The perception and development of the third sector in Europe is closely related to the other major social governance institutions/mechanisms, like the market, state and community and through the third sector’s interaction with them. Moreover, many third sector organizations (TSOs) overlap with these other social institutions, resulting in varying degrees of hybridity and internal tensions experienced by them. TSOs can generate resources from their activities on the market, by providing services in partnership with the state and/or by promoting the interests of a given community or group. The country overviews document a growing professionalization of TSOs in most countries and a growing dependency of public funds to provide services. This has important theoretical and practical implications for orienting the articles included in this book. Thus, it can provide a key for better understanding the discussion and analysis in the remainder of this volume.

In Italy, policies and services devoted to persons with disabilities, particularly those with cognitive disabilities, are still characterised by institutional segmentation and are focused on the medical model and therefore on rehabilitation, rather than on social participation, despite the formal ratification of the UNCRPD in 2009. This chapter analyses the pandemic impact by focusing on daily services, as a central service of welfare disability policy, and investigating if the pandemic has strengthened the dominant medical view, or if it has been an opportunity for a more integrated (social and health services) provision of services for people with disabilities, particularly with cognitive disabilities, and their families. Data on two regional case studies show severe differences in implementing national regulation to manage the pandemic at regional level. The difficulties experienced by both families and healthcare and social professionals are similar in the two regions, but the different organisational system concerning social and health care services outlines contexts with different rights.

Integration is a watchword in Government policy, designed to give more seamless, and therefore more effective, services to people in need. One concern, though, is that this is merely a ‘structural’ approach that just rearranges the deckchairs. This paper gives a practical example of a positive, local leadership approach to integration within a national context.

The current evidence to support rehabilitation commissioned and/or provided by social services gives some promising indications. However, it also reveals an urgent need for more and better information about what works best and for whom.

This study aims to ascertain the forms of social enterprises created for public services and the dimensions of community-based management of public facilities. It seeks to understand how community-based facilities management (CbFM) can apply to the management of public services created by social enterprises in developing communities.

The study examines research studies on CbFM through a scoping review of papers published between 1997 and 2022.

The scoping review revealed that there are five dimensions of CbFM for developing communities: CbFM, urban facilities management, sustainable CbFM, urban infrastructure management and management of community hubs. It also revealed that social enterprises have been used to manage services, and for social inclusion, and to increase the efficiency of tangible infrastructure in communities.

The scoping review included literature from 1997 to 2022 to understand the development trends in CbFM in developing communities. It is possible that literature from a broader timeframe could have produced more in-depth understanding of the subject investigated.

The paper articulates a framework of CbFM models for public services in developing communities and developed a database of the relevant studies, which can further guide future researchers, stakeholders and policymakers in this area.

The comprehensive review produced a framework for community management of public services. It also identified that there is a paucity of literature on social infrastructure. It highlighted the need for skillsets to support community-based enterprises. There are limited studies that touch on the development of performance indicators for developing communities.

The author argues that we must stop and take a look at what our insistence on human labour as the basis of our society is doing to us, and begin to search for possible alternatives. We need the vision and the courage to aim for the highest level of technology attainable for the widest possible use in both industry and services. We need financial arrangements that will encourage people to invent themselves out of work. Our goal, the article argues, must be the reduction of human labour to the greatest extent possible, to free people for more enjoyable, creative, human activities.

Despite differences in political approaches and institutional frameworks, health and social services in all European Union (EU) Member States face similar challenges, notably the need to adjust to demographic ageing and to changing employment and family patterns. This article takes a closer look at some of those issues (drivers) that are likely to have significant implications for the future of the sector. On this basis, three diverging “integrated visions” for health and social services are presented. The first vision is a “best guesstimate” and assumes that current developmental targets, for example, on reducing cardiovascular disease, are generally met. The second vision is a “problem‐plagued” view of health and social services, where targets are missed and the current level of service generally stays the same or deteriorates. Finally, the third vision presents a more “visionary” picture of health and social services where services are largely transformed from what is known today. All “integrated visions” have been constructed from existing health‐care scenarios as well as the drivers identified earlier. The paper is rounded off with an account of some of the policy measures being implemented by the European Commission and Member States in addressing several of the areas highlighted as important for the future of the sector.