The RESPONSIVE project aims to enhance the responsiveness of Europe’s social services to input from diverse citizens.
It wants to increase the impact of citizen voice on the approaches, organisation and delivery of three types of social service: disability and mental health, child protection and services for youth at risk, whilst recognising that citizens facing high levels of complexity in their lives often engage with multiple services.
The three services have been chosen for their relevance to European policy agendas on family life, disability rights, mental health, social inclusion and youth participation. The project will help citizens, social services and EU policy structures to better understand, utilise and innovate with the knowledge, experiences and ideas of citizens through six core objectives:
- Analyse the normative, legal, policy and practice contexts at local, national and EU level shaping how social services respond to the perspectives of diverse citizens (WP1)
- Assess the range, inclusivity, operation and impact of official channels of citizen input in social services (advisory groups, consultations, complaints, evaluation mechanisms) (WP2)
- Analyse the range, goals, content and approaches of public actions by citizens to change social services (protests, campaigns, social media, social enterprise, artistic production) (WP3)
- Identify the factors shaping changes by social services in response to the input of diverse citizens who use social services (WP4)
- Co-design and test tailored innovations for citizens, civil society groups, social services and policymakers to significantly expand the utilisation of different sources of citizen knowledge by social services at different levels (WP5)
- Promote uptake of innovations through dissemination of project results (WP6)