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Best Practices
Best practices to be drawn by French Guyana’s experience
From these three projects, lessons can be drawn, regarding the creation of innovative social services.
These lessons are likely to be transferred into other national contexts, and so other EU states members.
These “best practices” can be summarized as followed:
The first best practice would be the involvement of all partners at the very beginning of the project. Before to set up a new service, that is to say to propose concrete services to people having social difficulties, one should make sure that all concerned partners, on various levels (institution, social organizations, civil society…) are involved in the definition of the project, its goals and purpose.
The Observatory of social severe exclusion was set up after several meetings with all partners of the project leader.
Each partner agreed with the principle of setting up an Observatory, before thinking of the activities the Observatory would be in charge.
The second best practice, after the general purpose of the project is shared by all stakeholders, would be to start with concrete results, to show the viability of the project.
Before creating a new body and asking leadership for it, the project leader should first have concrete and efficient results.
As an example, the 115 social emergency call number was not created at the beginning of EQUAL project, but results from the first activities of the night emergency housing scheme.
The process was then to start with a project whose purpose was shared by all stakeholders (see “first best practice”), as the lack of housing facilities for emergency social situations and actually to create this new social care service.
The first results, so the effectively housing of people in great difficulties, allow the project leader to be recognized as an efficient and professional partner in the social area.
This was the condition for the setting up of another new social service, the single social emergency call number.
This number was strongly needed in French Guyana, but its creation was only possible after concrete answers to the issue (lack of social housing facilities).
The third best practice would be the necessity to think on a long-term perspective at the very beginning of the EQUAL project. In French Guyana, this was even a condition for applying for EQUAL project: the regular institutional and financial partner of the project leader was involved by the application for EQUAL funding.
This guarantees the possibility to continue some EQUAL activities after the EQUAL funds end, and so to go on with providing new social care services on a long-term perspective.
A part of the activities “115 number” and “night emergency housing scheme” are already sponsored by the institutional partner: they will be totally funded by this partner after EQUAL funding ends.
These three best practices stated above could be transferred into any national context, and could be therefore part on a common European methodology by creating innovative services in order to fight discrimination and exclusion. |
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