Narrative, legal, policy and organisational dimensions of responsiveness
Findings
This chapter presents the analysis of narrative, legal, policy and organisational frameworks shaping the extent to which social services respond to citizen voice and participatory input. The delineation between law, policy and organisational guidance is not always distinct and varies greatly between countries. The findings are organised by social services sector, in which results for each country can be found.
Cross-country findings
Although there are considerable differences between countries and target services concerning possibilities for citizen participation, none of the cases reaches a level that could be regarded as a comprehensive responsive infrastructure. The results suggest that there is a strong divide between the ‘front side’ and the ‘back side’ of participation. While on the frontstage the variety of opportunities for user involvement is shown, promoted or even used for purposes of image cultivation, the backstage processes of responsiveness – understood as reactions to and the utilisation of citizen voices by transparent, mandatory, monitored, intersectional, supportive and accessible co-construction mechanisms – remain underdeveloped or unknown. Social service users might be involved in participation mechanisms, but central elements of responsiveness to ensure that participation has an impact are insufficiently implemented. The gap between aspirations and concrete outcomes of participation remains. An infrastructure for real democratic change processes within social services is thus lacking.
Considering different types of social service, the disability sector is often characterized by at least somewhat responsive infrastructures and a strong activist presence. Mental health services show broad variety and inconsistent outcomes between countries. A democratic deficit appears in services working with marginalised young people when participation structures are not attentive and do not involve those at risk of social exclusion. Finally, the service sector of child protection turns out to have the lowest levels of involvement with a dominance of protective and patronizing approaches and a very strong reduction of participation to involvement in individual intervention plans.
Since the demanded elements of the legal framework and its implementation in policy documents overlap strongly, the respective results have been combined in one table (Table 1).
This chapter presents the analysis of narrative, legal, policy and organisational frameworks shaping the extent to which social services respond to citizen voice and participatory input. The delineation between law, policy and organisational guidance is not always distinct and varies greatly between countries. The findings are organised by social services sector, in which results for each country can be found.
Cross-country findings
Although there are considerable differences between countries and target services concerning possibilities for citizen participation, none of the cases reaches a level that could be regarded as a comprehensive responsive infrastructure. The results suggest that there is a strong divide between the ‘front side’ and the ‘back side’ of participation. While on the frontstage the variety of opportunities for user involvement is shown, promoted or even used for purposes of image cultivation, the backstage processes of responsiveness – understood as reactions to and the utilisation of citizen voices by transparent, mandatory, monitored, intersectional, supportive and accessible co-construction mechanisms – remain underdeveloped or unknown. Social service users might be involved in participation mechanisms, but central elements of responsiveness to ensure that participation has an impact are insufficiently implemented. The gap between aspirations and concrete outcomes of participation remains. An infrastructure for real democratic change processes within social services is thus lacking.
Considering different types of social service, the disability sector is often characterized by at least somewhat responsive infrastructures and a strong activist presence. Mental health services show broad variety and inconsistent outcomes between countries. A democratic deficit appears in services working with marginalised young people when participation structures are not attentive and do not involve those at risk of social exclusion. Finally, the service sector of child protection turns out to have the lowest levels of involvement with a dominance of protective and patronizing approaches and a very strong reduction of participation to involvement in individual intervention plans.
Since the demanded elements of the legal framework and its implementation in policy documents overlap strongly, the respective results have been combined in one table (Table 1).
This chapter presents the analysis of narrative, legal, policy and organisational frameworks shaping the extent to which social services respond to citizen voice and participatory input. The delineation between law, policy and organisational guidance is not always distinct and varies greatly between countries. The findings are organised by social services sector, in which results for each country can be found.
Cross-country findings
Although there are considerable differences between countries and target services concerning possibilities for citizen participation, none of the cases reaches a level that could be regarded as a comprehensive responsive infrastructure. The results suggest that there is a strong divide between the ‘front side’ and the ‘back side’ of participation. While on the frontstage the variety of opportunities for user involvement is shown, promoted or even used for purposes of image cultivation, the backstage processes of responsiveness – understood as reactions to and the utilisation of citizen voices by transparent, mandatory, monitored, intersectional, supportive and accessible co-construction mechanisms – remain underdeveloped or unknown. Social service users might be involved in participation mechanisms, but central elements of responsiveness to ensure that participation has an impact are insufficiently implemented. The gap between aspirations and concrete outcomes of participation remains. An infrastructure for real democratic change processes within social services is thus lacking.
Considering different types of social service, the disability sector is often characterized by at least somewhat responsive infrastructures and a strong activist presence. Mental health services show broad variety and inconsistent outcomes between countries. A democratic deficit appears in services working with marginalised young people when participation structures are not attentive and do not involve those at risk of social exclusion. Finally, the service sector of child protection turns out to have the lowest levels of involvement with a dominance of protective and patronizing approaches and a very strong reduction of participation to involvement in individual intervention plans.
Since the demanded elements of the legal framework and its implementation in policy documents overlap strongly, the respective results have been combined in one table (Table 1).
The table shows that participatory mechanisms to develop laws and policies on social services are at least used and mandated to some degree in EU countries. However, laws and policies pay either no or very little attention to questions of whether users are given an explicit role in making decisions, whether citizen participation in monitoring social services is compulsory or whether social services must publish feedback from service users and report how they use it.
This legal-policy gaps are significant because these are the core dimensions where citizen participation is put into practice and democratic transformations in social services are facilitated. The only clear distinction between the legal and policy levels is that policies recognize to some degree that resources (e.g. finances, staff, accessibility) are needed to support the participation of citizens who social services. This is somewhat understandable given that policies seek to implement and add detail to legal provisions. However, policies can rarely draw on a sufficient legal foundation that provides and allocates such resources.
Thus, legal and policy frameworks generally provide for service user’s ‘right to talk’, but place no responsibility on services to listen, respond and incorporate citizen feedback into decision-making. For instance in France, a framework for assessing the quality of social and medico-social services states that “the service user is involved in revising the rules of collective living or the way the service operating procedures and tools to help them to be understood’, but it is the professionals who “co-construct the rules of collective living or the operating procedures of the service, while respecting the rights and freedoms of the person being cared for’” (ANSA 2022, chapter 1.3.1, 1.3.2).
A very similar tendency can also be seen in specific operational guidance for social service organisations (Table 2).
The table shows that participatory mechanisms to develop laws and policies on social services are at least used and mandated to some degree in EU countries. However, laws and policies pay either no or very little attention to questions of whether users are given an explicit role in making decisions, whether citizen participation in monitoring social services is compulsory or whether social services must publish feedback from service users and report how they use it. This legal-policy gaps are significant because these are the core dimensions where citizen participation is put into practice and democratic transformations in social services are facilitated. The only clear distinction between the legal and policy levels is that policies recognize to some degree that resources (e.g. finances, staff, accessibility) are needed to support the participation of citizens who social services. This is somewhat understandable given that policies seek to implement and add detail to legal provisions. However, policies can rarely draw on a sufficient legal foundation that provides and allocates such resources.
Thus, legal and policy frameworks generally provide for service user’s ‘right to talk’, but place no responsibility on services to listen, respond and incorporate citizen feedback into decision-making. For instance in France, a framework for assessing the quality of social and medico-social services states that “the service user is involved in revising the rules of collective living or the way the service operating procedures and tools to help them to be understood’, but it is the professionals who “co-construct the rules of collective living or the operating procedures of the service, while respecting the rights and freedoms of the person being cared for’” (ANSA 2022, chapter 1.3.1, 1.3.2).
A very similar tendency can also be seen in specific operational guidance for social service organisations (Table 2).
The table shows that participatory mechanisms to develop laws and policies on social services are at least used and mandated to some degree in EU countries. However, laws and policies pay either no or very little attention to questions of whether users are given an explicit role in making decisions, whether citizen participation in monitoring social services is compulsory or whether social services must publish feedback from service users and report how they use it. This legal-policy gaps are significant because these are the core dimensions where citizen participation is put into practice and democratic transformations in social services are facilitated. The only clear distinction between the legal and policy levels is that policies recognize to some degree that resources (e.g. finances, staff, accessibility) are needed to support the participation of citizens who social services. This is somewhat understandable given that policies seek to implement and add detail to legal provisions. However, policies can rarely draw on a sufficient legal foundation that provides and allocates such resources.
Thus, legal and policy frameworks generally provide for service user’s ‘right to talk’, but place no responsibility on services to listen, respond and incorporate citizen feedback into decision-making. For instance in France, a framework for assessing the quality of social and medico-social services states that “the service user is involved in revising the rules of collective living or the way the service operating procedures and tools to help them to be understood’, but it is the professionals who “co-construct the rules of collective living or the operating procedures of the service, while respecting the rights and freedoms of the person being cared for’” (ANSA 2022, chapter 1.3.1, 1.3.2).
A very similar tendency can also be seen in specific operational guidance for social service organisations (Table 2).
Looking at structures for policy development at the social sector level, distinctive or modest levels of participation can be observed in associations and networks of service users, advisory boards, working groups and citizen councils. However, there is no or only a very limited infrastructure for user participation, let alone responsiveness, in other social sector stakeholders, including social service directors, associations of social work practitioners and agencies that monitor quality, inclusion and human rights.
At the level of individual social services, advisory groups of service users (e.g. The Council on Disability and Council of Institutionalised Youth in Romania), consultative events (e.g. Self-advocacy conference Lebenshilfe Vienna), people with lived experience employed as social service staff (e.g. peer workers for mental health in Austria and youth at risk in Denmark) and publicly advertised complaint processes (e.g. Human Rights Ombudsperson [Défenseur des droits] in France) are at least existent in some cases. On the other hand, very few examples of user-led services (exceptions being disability and mental health services in France and Austria) or transparent reporting mechanisms on the use of feedback from users can be found across the different countries and areas of social service. Legally mandated participation boards within individual social services mostly only interact with the main board, but it is rather unusual for citizens to sit on the service’s main board or to actively participate in the formal decision-making processes.
Across the six countries studied in the RESPONSIVE project, it was very rare to find documented examples of citizen participation leading to change and reform in the organisational fields of social services. This may partly be a methodological issue if information about internal processes of change is not published, but it points to a more fundamental issue that democratic practices in the social sector are not visible or reported. It seems that at the point where the decision-making power increases, the participation structure for service users decreases. The absence of a strong institutional framework for citizen input to have impact means that there is a widespread risk of ‘token participation’. It will be the task of primary data collection in future work packages to reveal the circumstances under which democratic change within social services occurs.
The analysis of academic, activist, practitioner and NGO discussions about citizen participation in the social sector shines a light on these problems. Citizen and activist documents tend to criticize policy structures and organisations for lacking responsiveness, providing detailed examples of frustrating meetings with social services and failed or tokenistic participation. Official documents tend to refer more to participation as a tool for revitalising democracy and legitimising decisions, whereas documents originating from professional practice and NGOs tend to emphasise the potential benefits to participants.
Strikingly, the analysis found very little recognition in narratives, let alone concrete structures, that gender, intersectionality and power inequalities shape and affect participation and responsiveness. This absence of a core dimension of responsiveness is worrying in light of academic and social service practice knowledge that gender, class, ethnicity and disability greatly affect representation as clients of social services and very low representation in policy-making and leading positions (Pease 2011; Lewis 2012; Rouhani 2017). Failing to address these inequalities and their interfaces (Klinger 2008) means being inattentive to participation gaps and problems of exclusion in areas of social work as well as in general fields of democracy.
Overall, considerable work is needed to instantiate almost all dimensions of responsiveness and create a real democratic change process in social services in European Union countries, regardless of their welfare model or history of social sector development. Organisational management theory underlines that far-reaching and persistent transformations only can be achieved when routinised structures and processes are changed comprehensively.
The following sections on specific areas of social services explain the general absence of mechanisms for social services to respond to citizen input, but also highlight important examples of well-written policies, laws, proposed solutions or change processes. This is done to recognise the important and creative work that has been done to promote citizen voice in social services and to show that it is possible to realise and strengthen the responsive side of participation in social services across Europe.
Looking at structures for policy development at the social sector level, distinctive or modest levels of participation can be observed in associations and networks of service users, advisory boards, working groups and citizen councils. However, there is no or only a very limited infrastructure for user participation, let alone responsiveness, in other social sector stakeholders, including social service directors, associations of social work practitioners and agencies that monitor quality, inclusion and human rights.
At the level of individual social services, advisory groups of service users (e.g. The Council on Disability and Council of Institutionalised Youth in Romania), consultative events (e.g. Self-advocacy conference Lebenshilfe Vienna), people with lived experience employed as social service staff (e.g. peer workers for mental health in Austria and youth at risk in Denmark) and publicly advertised complaint processes (e.g. Human Rights Ombudsperson [Défenseur des droits] in France) are at least existent in some cases. On the other hand, very few examples of user-led services (exceptions being disability and mental health services in France and Austria) or transparent reporting mechanisms on the use of feedback from users can be found across the different countries and areas of social service. Legally mandated participation boards within individual social services mostly only interact with the main board, but it is rather unusual for citizens to sit on the service’s main board or to actively participate in the formal decision-making processes.
Across the six countries studied in the RESPONSIVE project, it was very rare to find documented examples of citizen participation leading to change and reform in the organisational fields of social services. This may partly be a methodological issue if information about internal processes of change is not published, but it points to a more fundamental issue that democratic practices in the social sector are not visible or reported. It seems that at the point where the decision-making power increases, the participation structure for service users decreases. The absence of a strong institutional framework for citizen input to have impact means that there is a widespread risk of ‘token participation’. It will be the task of primary data collection in future work packages to reveal the circumstances under which democratic change within social services occurs.
The analysis of academic, activist, practitioner and NGO discussions about citizen participation in the social sector shines a light on these problems. Citizen and activist documents tend to criticize policy structures and organisations for lacking responsiveness, providing detailed examples of frustrating meetings with social services and failed or tokenistic participation. Official documents tend to refer more to participation as a tool for revitalising democracy and legitimising decisions, whereas documents originating from professional practice and NGOs tend to emphasise the potential benefits to participants.
Strikingly, the analysis found very little recognition in narratives, let alone concrete structures, that gender, intersectionality and power inequalities shape and affect participation and responsiveness. This absence of a core dimension of responsiveness is worrying in light of academic and social service practice knowledge that gender, class, ethnicity and disability greatly affect representation as clients of social services and very low representation in policy-making and leading positions (Pease 2011; Lewis 2012; Rouhani 2017). Failing to address these inequalities and their interfaces (Klinger 2008) means being inattentive to participation gaps and problems of exclusion in areas of social work as well as in general fields of democracy.
Overall, considerable work is needed to instantiate almost all dimensions of responsiveness and create a real democratic change process in social services in European Union countries, regardless of their welfare model or history of social sector development. Organisational management theory underlines that far-reaching and persistent transformations only can be achieved when routinised structures and processes are changed comprehensively.
The following sections on specific areas of social services explain the general absence of mechanisms for social services to respond to citizen input, but also highlight important examples of well-written policies, laws, proposed solutions or change processes. This is done to recognise the important and creative work that has been done to promote citizen voice in social services and to show that it is possible to realise and strengthen the responsive side of participation in social services across Europe.
Looking at structures for policy development at the social sector level, distinctive or modest levels of participation can be observed in associations and networks of service users, advisory boards, working groups and citizen councils. However, there is no or only a very limited infrastructure for user participation, let alone responsiveness, in other social sector stakeholders, including social service directors, associations of social work practitioners and agencies that monitor quality, inclusion and human rights.
At the level of individual social services, advisory groups of service users (e.g. The Council on Disability and Council of Institutionalised Youth in Romania), consultative events (e.g. Self-advocacy conference Lebenshilfe Vienna), people with lived experience employed as social service staff (e.g. peer workers for mental health in Austria and youth at risk in Denmark) and publicly advertised complaint processes (e.g. Human Rights Ombudsperson [Défenseur des droits] in France) are at least existent in some cases. On the other hand, very few examples of user-led services (exceptions being disability and mental health services in France and Austria) or transparent reporting mechanisms on the use of feedback from users can be found across the different countries and areas of social service. Legally mandated participation boards within individual social services mostly only interact with the main board, but it is rather unusual for citizens to sit on the service’s main board or to actively participate in the formal decision-making processes.
Across the six countries studied in the RESPONSIVE project, it was very rare to find documented examples of citizen participation leading to change and reform in the organisational fields of social services. This may partly be a methodological issue if information about internal processes of change is not published, but it points to a more fundamental issue that democratic practices in the social sector are not visible or reported. It seems that at the point where the decision-making power increases, the participation structure for service users decreases. The absence of a strong institutional framework for citizen input to have impact means that there is a widespread risk of ‘token participation’. It will be the task of primary data collection in future work packages to reveal the circumstances under which democratic change within social services occurs.
The analysis of academic, activist, practitioner and NGO discussions about citizen participation in the social sector shines a light on these problems. Citizen and activist documents tend to criticize policy structures and organisations for lacking responsiveness, providing detailed examples of frustrating meetings with social services and failed or tokenistic participation. Official documents tend to refer more to participation as a tool for revitalising democracy and legitimising decisions, whereas documents originating from professional practice and NGOs tend to emphasise the potential benefits to participants.
Strikingly, the analysis found very little recognition in narratives, let alone concrete structures, that gender, intersectionality and power inequalities shape and affect participation and responsiveness. This absence of a core dimension of responsiveness is worrying in light of academic and social service practice knowledge that gender, class, ethnicity and disability greatly affect representation as clients of social services and very low representation in policy-making and leading positions (Pease 2011; Lewis 2012; Rouhani 2017). Failing to address these inequalities and their interfaces (Klinger 2008) means being inattentive to participation gaps and problems of exclusion in areas of social work as well as in general fields of democracy.
Overall, considerable work is needed to instantiate almost all dimensions of responsiveness and create a real democratic change process in social services in European Union countries, regardless of their welfare model or history of social sector development. Organisational management theory underlines that far-reaching and persistent transformations only can be achieved when routinised structures and processes are changed comprehensively.
The following sections on specific areas of social services explain the general absence of mechanisms for social services to respond to citizen input, but also highlight important examples of well-written policies, laws, proposed solutions or change processes. This is done to recognise the important and creative work that has been done to promote citizen voice in social services and to show that it is possible to realise and strengthen the responsive side of participation in social services across Europe.
In recent years and decades, services for persons with disabilities have changed through a shift in the disability paradigm within international scientific debates, standard-setting bodies and public policies on disability (Kubicki 2016, 2019). This transition proceeds from a medical model of individually disabled clients, whose impairments ought to be ‘healed’ or compensated, to a social and cultural model of disability that emphasises the societal barriers impeding the participation of disabled people in society (Waldschmidt 2020). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which both the European Union and all six RESPONSIVE countries have ratified, plays a central role in this regard. Initiated and co-developed by disability activists, the UNCRPD is underpinned by principles of participation, self-determination and independence, but national and international monitoring mechanisms reveal far-reaching deficiencies in its implementation. The deinstitutionalisation of services for persons with disabilities is a key issue across most EU countries, where the scale of needed change is especially high in Austria and Romania.
The UNCPRD and work of disabled person’s organisations mean that in most of the investigated countries, the disability sector has broader participation structures and cultures than in other target services. Nonetheless, the involvement of disabled people in the decision-making processes of disability services is only partially anchored in law, policy and organisational practice. It is often limited to ‘advisory’ roles, misses transparency and monitoring mechanisms and happens through disability organisations (or bodies including them) rather than the direct participation of individual citizens.
In Austria, the 2008 ratification of the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) marked a crucial turning point, even if its implementation is patchy. Austria also has a long history of comparatively strong disability activism that has long raised the problem of token participation and the divergence between aspirations and realities. For instance, a statement from the Independent Monitoring Committee on the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Monitoring Committee 2022) criticized the process of creating the country’s National Action Plan for Disability 2022-2030 as not participatory because it is not clear how the working groups were formed and to what extent the opinions of civil society were included. This and further examples indicate a broad awareness amongst citizen groups that core dimensions of responsiveness are missing.
Regarding the legal infrastructure in Austria, disability is treated within a single national law (Bundesbehindertengesetz / Federal Disability Act) to guarantee coherency and uniformity. It is striking that a substantial number of regional acts used participatory mechanisms to develop regional implementation of this law and mandated the involvement of users in designing social services (Bundes-Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz / Federal Disability Equality Act, Chancengleichheitsgesetz Wien / Vienna Act on Equal Opportunities, Tiroler Teilhabegesetz / Tyrol Participation Act (TTHG), Gesetz zur Förderung der Chancengleichheit von Menschen mit Behinderung / Act to Promote Equal Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities). Most importantly, regional acts like the “Vienna Act on Equal Opportunities” or the “Tyrolian Participation Act (TTHG)” to some degree also give users a decision-making role about social services and allocate finances and resources to support the participation of service users.
The Tyrol Participation Act 2018 is an important and rare example of strongly anchored legal and policy mechanisms aiming to increase citizen voice and – somewhat – enhance the responsiveness of services. This law introduced the “personal budget” tool, where people with disabilities take ownership of their social services by receiving a direct payment, allowing them to directly manage their personal assistance (Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung Abteilung Inklusion und Kinder- und Jugendhilfe 2023). The Participation Act also established a “Nutzer:innen-Vertretung” (User Representation Group) to advise on disability services and contribute to the creation of the Tyrolean Action Plan for the implementation of the UNCRPD. However, on 25 May 2023 this group temporarily resigned due to what they saw as insufficient possibilities for co-construction and attempts to reduce its independence by the regional government (https://nutzerinnenvertretungtirol.at 2023, Mitterwachauer 2023). According to their statement, the Department for Inclusion, Child and Youth Welfare rejected their proposals to include members from a more diverse range of persons with disabilities as well as comprehensively reimburse of expenses. The members felt that an implied threat from the regional government to abolish the User Representation Group as a legal body was evidence that they were being instrumentalised for promotional purposes. Similar to the declaration from Austria’s Independent Monitoring Committee for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the impression was created that the user’s voices were heard, but at the same excluded from actual decision-making processes.
Even if co-creation is addressed and certain processes for democratic change is happening in some parts of the Austrian disability sector, a general problem of unresponsiveness remains. There are a number of user-led services offered by disabled people’s organisations (e.g. BIZEPS, WAG, Selbstbestimmt Leben Innsbruck). Personal assistance services for disabled people to live independently were in fact pioneered by disabled people’s organisations in Austria before being mainstreamed in policy. Whilst advisory boards and hired peer workers within social services for persons with disabilities do exist, there are very few examples of user representatives sitting on the main board of social services. Large commercial and not-for-profit social service providers remain politically and financially dominant in the sector and the main federal consultative structure in the disability sector (Behindertenrat) follows a corporatist structure that includes disabled people as users together with representatives of service providers and employees, reducing citizen voice.
In France, the Councils of Social Life (Conseils de Vie Sociale, CVS) serve as an example of a mechanism seeking to promote the participation of people within disability services. While the French legal framework was not at all designed by participatory processes, it makes participatory mechanisms mandatory in some types of services. In the 2000s, a number of consultative bodies were set up to ensure that the interests of disabled people were better expressed. The Councils of Social Life (CVS) were created as part of 2002 legislation and are a mandatory body for institutions for older people and people with disabilities. It represents various stakeholders in a facility: users, staff and families. It enables these players to make proposals and express their opinions on the main decisions governing the life of disabled people. The CVS meet at least three times a year and a record of conclusions, including opinions and proposals, is drawn up from the discussions and recorded in a book of deliberations. Beyond the 2002 legislation, which is mandatory for some social services and optional for others, there are no binding policies or provisions that aim to involve citizens/users in social services on a permanent basis. Nearly all of the policies concerning citizen participation are instead optional guidance documents that provide advice, recommendations and good practices.
The Conseil de Vie Sociale asthe main structure for citizen participation in French social services, does not have any formal powers to influence decision-making or budget allocation. The CVS are established to provide feedback and make proposals for the functioning of social services, but they are not assigned any decision-making power. In this sense, they have more of a consultative role than a co-construction or co-decision function. In addition, while some French policy documents claim that responsiveness is a core objective, the feedback mechanisms or channels through which responsiveness to participation might occur are not explicit. Within these councils there is very limited information available about the composition of the council, on meetings, follow-ups, accessible structures or evaluations from service users themselves. Against this background, the question arises of whether service users’ experiences are in line with the results of a survey conducted by the Agence nouvelle de solidarité active (ANSA 2022), according to which 73% of services with CVS structures in place declare that requests and proposals arising from CVS meetings or other collective participatory bodies are implemented.
Taken as a whole, responsiveness dimensions of mandatory citizen participation and monitoring are somewhat prevalent in legal, policy and organisational frameworks for disability services in France. However, they are accompanied by low or unknown levels of joint decision-making, transparency of processes, accessibility and intersectionality.
In Romania, despite the ratification of the UNCRPD, ongoing deinstitutionalisation processes and the transition from medical rehabilitation to social inclusion approaches, there are very limited participatory structures and also very few services for people with disabilities in general.
The development of laws for people with disabilities in Romania usually involves various stakeholders, including governmental institutions, civil society organizations, service providers, experts, and, to a certain extent service users and citizens. In fact, the power of governmental institutions restricts participation because invitations of representatives and approval of requests are made by commissions, parliamentary deputies and senators. Service providers may be consulted during the legislative process in a non-mandatory manner, but service user participation usually only happens when independent research is conducted or framed in law as involvement in one’s own case, rather than shaping disability services more widely (Person-centred care for independent living: Law 7/2023 on deinstitutionalisation; 2019 quality standards in social services for persons with disabilities).
However, there are also examples which to some degree can serve as inspirational models for law, policy makers and social actors within a rather fragmented Romanian civil society. The 2016 National Strategy for the Inclusion of People with Disabilities included nationwide consultations, which can be a valuable mechanism for fostering participatory decision-making and ensuring that policies and laws align with the realities and aspirations of social service users and citizens. In addition, the active involvement of service users and their families in the planning, provision and evaluation of social services is one principle in frameworks for the evaluation and monitoring of quality in the field of social services in Romania.
It is possible to identify associations and networks of persons with disabilities and participatory monitoring mechanisms in Romania’s disability sector (e.g. the NGO Legal Resources Center, CRJ). Law 7/2023 has recently mandated user representation on advisory boards of residential centres for persons with disabilities, although it is too early to assess its implementation. At the same time, more powerful examples in terms of user-led organisations, user representatives on main boards of social services or associations of service directors and practitioners are absent. Problems of low levels of involvement, transparency and mandatory requirements for participatory structures persist in Romania’s disability sector.
In Denmark, social services are regulated through national law and policy and implemented by regional and municipal social service organisations. Most national policies in the social service areas do not specify how to implement the policy, which is typically left to regional or municipal levels of government and organisations. Within this rather unregulated context, a broad participation infrastructure on a legal level is confronted with modest, very limited or at least unknown outcomes in the disability sector. The desk analysis shows that even though consultations for all laws include interest groups, consultation with users about their intervention plans is compulsory (Act on Social Services) and there are evidence-based national standards for social work and structures for complaints, the remaining dimensions of responsiveness rather fall short of expectation on the institutional level. Practitioner and activist sources frequently highlight instances where service user participation and engagement are deemed inadequate or even absent, despite being seemingly integral to the specified social service. They critique laws and policies for hindering citizen-system responsiveness. Suggested remedies involve either preventing the enactment of particular laws, altering the allocation of resources, or reconfiguring the distribution of power and influence among the various actors engaged in social services and the corresponding processes (Skjold & Jacobsen, 2023; Hus Forbi, 2020, 2023; Christiansen, 2023; 37 organisations, 2023).
Portugal has made a significant effort in the protection and advancement of the rights of persons with disabilities, as referred to in a recent report of the Disability and Human Rights Observatory (ODDH 2023). The participation of service users in the disability domain is enshrined in law as a principle and embodied in a set of rights: representation, intervention, consultation, information and request. The National Strategy for the Inclusion of People with Disabilities (ENIPD) 2021–2025 was submitted to public consultation and the participation of representatives of citizens with disabilities is mandated through representation in the Monitoring Commission for its implementation. Organisationally, there are lots of associational structures in which the information regarding the results of the recommendations appears more evident. For instance, the reports of the APD Portuguese Association for Disabled People include information on the outcome of proposals, recommendations, or complaints, whether at the national or local level (e.g. amendments in the National Strategy for Inclusion, adoption of measures to improve accessibility in cities).
Despite these positive developments at different levels, problems of implementation persist and people with disabilities – especially girls and women – continue to be disadvantaged and experience multiple discrimination in Portugal. Thus, discourses in the disability sector are rather critical and pessimistic. For instance, the National Federation of Social Solidarity Cooperatives (FENACERCI, 2023) categorically asserts that there is no genuine national strategy for the participation of people with disabilities. Moreover, the National Confederation of Organizations for People with Disabilities (CNOPD, 2020) criticized that new laws were only created to “shut up” people with disabilities. In addition, analysis for the RESPONSIVE project shows that user-led social services, user representatives on main boards or the employment of people with lived experience are absent in disability services in Portugal. The various mechanisms of mandatory consultations seem to be insufficient when resources, policy reports on the impact of user participation and institutional or organisational co-construction frameworks are missing.
In Poland, discussions concerning participation in the disability sector have increased in recent years. The narratives of activists and practitioners pay most attention to responsiveness and participation, reflecting their historical concern with exclusion from decision-making. As in other countries surveyed in this project, people with disabilities appear to be the best organised and represented group of citizens using social services among those surveyed in the RESPONSIVE project with numerous self-advocates and activists. They call for an efficient, complex, and inclusive support system, providing conditions for decision-making, and propose concrete, well-considered innovations that have been proven in other European countries. All these solutions are interlinked by the idea of deinstitutionalisation and independent living in terms of community-based services and involving people with disabilities as co-decision makers.
These voices are raised in reaction to policy discourse on disabilities in Poland, where little attention is paid to the responsiveness of services. While the Strategy for the Development of Social Services 2021–2035 aims for the deinstitutionalisation of social services, there is almost nothing about co-decision-making. The Government Plenipotentiary for Persons with Disabilities, although he himself is a person with a physical disability, only mentions “broad consultations, listening to the people, listening to their needs and showing them various possibilities” (Przybyszewski 2021), but it is still a paternalistic and top-down approach. Legal acts governing disability services outline mechanisms of consultation and evaluation based on special consultative bodies (Law on Social Welfare 2004, Act on Vocational and Social Rehabilitation 1997). The National (and regional) Consultative Councils for Persons with Disabilities consists of 5 government officials, 5 local government officials, 20 representatives of NGOs working for the benefit of people with disabilities and representatives of trade unions and employers’ organisations. However, users are not directly involved, direct provisions are absent and monitoring and feedback mechanisms of users are not mandated.
Across the different countries, mental health sectors often have a liminal status because they are mostly integrated into – and therefore shaped by – more general sectors of either health or disability. In some contexts, the strong focus on health outcomes and medical patient rights, or else closeness to disability areas, has helped to promote a partial structure of responsiveness towards mental health users (Portugal, Denmark, France and partly Austria). In other contexts, the subsumption and dominance of medical/psychiatric perspectives can lead to situations where mental health services are invisible, underfinanced or over-institutionalised (Poland, Romania and partly also Austria).
In Austria, the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008 is a milestone that has profoundly influenced and continues to influence research, narratives, laws, and organizations in mental health. The federal, regional and municipal governments are legally obliged to implement the UNCPRD, but few structures are dedicated specifically to mental health.
In 2012, a national Health Commission began to develop so-called health targets. Health goal number 9 deals with “psychosocial health” and was published in 2019. The goals were developed by more than 40 organisations from the policy and social sectors and one of the central points is that psychosocial work should be as participatory and needs-oriented as possible, and with the goal of increased social inclusion (Arrouas 2019: 10). Participation is seen as a “fundamental principle of health promotion” (ibid.: 43). Responsiveness is not mentioned but strongly implied. Part of this work at federal level included the creation of a Networking Platform of Experts with Personal Experience in Mental Health that is financed through Ministry of Health structures and meets regularly to develop collective proposals for reform. User-led organizations are taking the lead in professionalizing peer work (TIPSI 2021) and institutionalizing more democratic and user-centred forms of treatment, including cooperative ‘trialogue’ format that brings together professionals, people with mental health issues and their families (Verein Freiräume 2012).
In Austria mental health practice, there are interesting academic concepts that try to integrate participation and collaboration in treatment, including “collaborative care” (Christiansen et al. 2019; Zechmeister-Koss et al. 2020), “It Takes a Village Approach” (Goodyear et al. 2022) and “mental health trialogue” (Amering et al. 2012) which is strongly adapted in practice. Trialogue groups consisting of users, carers, friends and mental health workers are also becoming established as a more democratic form of mental health intervention (ibid.). However, there is limited focus on general questions of democratisation, responsiveness, gender and intersectionality. Discourses from mental health practitioners in Austria often call for a general improvement in personnel structure and numbers of beds (der Standard 2022, 2023), but have less of a focus on participation and opening the mental health system to citizen input. In contrast, activists demand an increasing professionalization of self-help structures, alternatives to psychiatry (e.g. Home-Treatment, “Weglauf-Häuser”) and peer work in line with the well-known disability rights statement “Nothing about us without us!” (Lüthi 2022: 437). Activists and user groups also argue for greater use of empathy and experiential knowledge in treatment approaches (Networking Platform of Experts with Personal Experience in Mental Health 2021).
In France, the field of mental health is a part of the disability sector with generally similar problems and gaps of responsiveness. One example of citizen participation leading to change and reform in mental health services stands out. Groupes d’entraide mutuelle (GEM – mutual aid groups) are self-managed structures of people with mental health difficulties. GEMs can be found all over France, enabling them to support each other in the face of the problems they encounter. They already existed in the 1960s in the form of clubs and then, supported by four founding federations, they carried out advocacy actions until being included in the 2005 law on equal rights, opportunities and citizenship for people with disabilities. Then the GEMs wanted to become autonomous from these federations and created a national coordination of GEMS. The recent research report (Jean-Yves Barreyre et Patricia Fiacre, 2023) shows their important democratic dimension and contribution to health democracy, despite the fragility of their operations. GEMs are non-professionalised, with only one animator for each GEM and a limited budget, but represent a valuable and rare example of direct citizen participation in the social sector.
In Romania, mental health is still an invisible area in social services. There are almost no referrals to specific social services for people with mental health problems because this domain is usually included under medical services. In addition, there is no specific law regulating social services for people with mental health difficulties in this area. This category is under the same regulation as disability. The only specific regulation regarding mental health is the Law 487 from 2002 called “Law on Mental Health and Protection of People with Mental Disorders”, which includes almost none of the investigated participatory indicators. In addition, no references or initiatives regarding consultative groups created with people with mental health problems can be identified during the last ten years. There are also only very few organisations that provide specific social services for mental health. This is a general problem in the Romanian social sector. One objective in the “National strategy on social inclusion and poverty reduction for the period 2022–2027” states that integrated social services should be developed by the local authorities for the local community.However, of 3188 Territorial Administrative Units (UAT) that exist in Romania, in June 2020 only 29% were registered as providers of social services and community social services only existed in 29 UATs. A key obstacle and reason for this lack of implementation lies in the fact that the resources for these services were only guaranteed for three years, which especially left poorer regions uncertain about whether they could establish a sustainable structure.
In Denmark, the health and social sectors are divided into two separate and very distinct areas with little organizational and professional overlap. Like in Portugal, the Danish health sector has for several years had a much more responsive-based narrative and focus on patient rights than the social sector. Some of the literature and discourses analysed focus increasingly on involving service users in different types of treatment, including alternative treatments and criticize participation concepts as non-effective buzzwords, if no real change possibilities exist.
The national policy “10-year Plan for Psychiatric Care and Mental Health”. This policy contains 19 ambitious aims, which embrace mental health, prevention, early intervention, treatment and social psychiatry. The needs of service users are highlighted several times in the policy, but it lacks a plan for how to include service user and citizen perspectives. Other policy documents in the mental health field offer little, if any, information on how to implement service user participation in social services. For example, some of the policies are directed at healthcare professionals, who treat and care for people suffering from mental illnesses and substance abuse, without addressing how to implement service user participation.
Consequently, also on the organisational level, the responsive infrastructure is quite scarce in Denmark. While there are mental health associations, networks and advisory groups of service users, peer workers and complaint procedures, no information could be found about representation on main boards, citizen councils, consultative events, external monitoring structures, participation in associations of social service directors or practitioners and user-led social services.
In Portugal’s mental health sector, many efforts and improvements have been made over the last decades. More recently, facing a lack of implementation of previous plans and structures, the government has committed to concluding the Mental Health Services Reform foreseen in the Mental Health National Plan. A working group was created in 2020 to present a proposal to revise the Mental Health Law and to approve two new laws. Decree-Law 113/2021 establishes the general principles and rules for the organization and operation of mental health services and Law 35/2023 (21 July 2023) is set to approve the new Mental Health Law. 30 institutions, associations and professionals (including representatives of professional orders/associations, practice, user and family members’ associations) presented written contributions on the draft law (by invitation) in the context of established consultation mechanisms of the parliamentary legislative process. This example shows how service user participation in Portugal is mandatory to the extent that service users’ associations should be represented in permanent consultation structures at national, regional and local levels. It is the duty of the State to collaborate with associations of patients and health system users.
However, sceptical voices from citizens and NGOs counterbalance the optimistic narratives from policy circles and criticise the composition of the working groups as being too ‘expert’ and unbalanced (AVA 2023). Moreover, the concrete role of associations of citizens using mental health services in decision-making is often unclear. The public administration’s legal framework is based on an instrumental view of citizens’ participation because it connects participation with a more efficient use of resources.
At the level of direct practice in mental health services, participation is mandatory and focused on the individual case (elaboration of an individual intervention plan) and decisions that directly affect service users. Participation is not always directed to changing services at a more organisational level. At a sector-wide level, persons who use mental health services are well represented in sector-wide advisory boards, monitoring committees, associations and networks of service users, directors or practitioners. There are also a few examples of users leading or sitting on the main board of mental health services. However, very few advisory boards and participatory events exist at the level of individual mental health service organisations. This might be one reason why no examples of citizen participation leading to change and reform could be found and the facilitation of comprehensive co-decision structures is impeded. In reflection on the abovementioned praise from the FGC report, analysis of key documents shows that they contain vague or unclear information regarding the implementation of participatory processes, for example the role of users in decision-making and monitoring of policies and programs, the funding of citizen participation, and the impact of participation in the responsivity of the programs and social services.
Within social services in Poland, the mental health sector is the only exception to a general tendency for policy and practice narratives to lack recognition of the importance of responsiveness to user or citizen perspectives. However, participation is hampered by the underfunded, undeveloped and still extremely institutionalised nature of mental health care in Poland.
It is striking that documents concerning mental health services in Poland include different voices and some of these documents were created in a participatory manner, but they do not contain many proposals to improve service users’ participation. A specific solution produced in a participatory manner was proposed by the Working Community of Associations of Social Organisations (WRZOS 2022), including participatory lobbying to advance mental health reform (e.g. Yellow Ribbon Marches, where people experiencing mental health problems and health professionals can present their demands in a public space).
Designing and co-constructing mental health services, feedback and evaluations from users and the allocation of resources for participation are almost non-existent in Poland’s legal framework for mental health services. At the legal level, the Act on Mental Health Protection 2006 establishes two main structures: The Mental Health Council and the Mental Hospital Patient Ombudsman. The Mental Health Council is a consultative and advisory body established to monitor the implementation of the tasks set out in the National Mental Health Protection Program and to consult and give opinions on matters for the Minister of Health and is composed exclusively of experts and academics. Thus, a ‘culture of responsiveness’ is lacking along with the result that there is no support for citizen participation in mental health, including the development of the participatory competences of service users as well as the lack of financial resources for the development of participation of vulnerable groups.
The one striking exception to this general trend is the pilot project of Mental Health Centres based on the idea of community-based psychiatry, which are designed to increase service users’ participation and autonomy as well as the flexibility of services. In line with this approach, patients should co-decide about their treatment, communicate their needs and be listened to. However, after several years of the successful and well-evaluated pilot programme, the government proposed draft amendments to the law on mental health protection that aroused significant controversy and objections. The Polish Association of Community-Based Psychiatry (PTPŚ 2023) “strongly opposes the provisions concerning the prerequisites for hospitalisation without consent in a psychiatric hospital and placement without consent in a social welfare home, which are proposed in the draft amendments to the Mental Health Act.” This development highlights that innovative projects in citizen participation are highly threatened if wider policy understanding of the need for democratisation and participation is missing in the social sector.
In Austria, a tendency to approach young persons at risk as objects of care by adults rather than active subjects is reflected in limited participatory structures. In stark contrast to discourses from the fields of disability and mental health, narratives in the field of youth work have very rarely emerged in a participatory manner. The introduction of the Advisory Board on Child and Youth Welfare along with an Ombudsperson for Children and Youth in 1991 can be regarded as an innovation at that time. However, these bodies are still reduced to consultation and the composition of their members and documents is dominated by ‘experts’ from social work associations, ministries, scientists, judges and attorneys. Youth participation in the creation of policy documents or organisational guidelines is addressed in very few documents and examples. Notably, the few documents that have clearer ideas about participation structures and directly refer to democratisation aspirations relate to general representative bodies that address all young people and not specifically those at risk of social exclusion (e.g., Youth Strategy, Youth Advisory Board).
These aspects correspond with the legal framework for youth services in France, which on the one side, uses participatory mechanisms to develop laws, mandates user participation in designing social services and allocates finances and resources to support participation to some extent. However, on the other side, it does not promote the transformative dimensions of responsiveness, because it only rarely allows users to be part of co-constructive or monitoring processes. Social services in France are not obliged to report on how they use feedback from citizen voices. Within this scope, a dominance of top-down participation procedures becomes apparent: central bodies and councils on youth issues are either called in by the prime minister (CIJ: Comité Interministériel de la Jeunesse) or report to the prime minister (Youth Policy Orientation Council). Consequently, even though the intention to report on the utilisation of user perspectives is anchored in law, the information is untransparent and only communicated to or by an authority.
While the abovementioned legislation is mandatory across the French territory, the guidelines and recommendations for the practical implementation of youth participation are optional and simply serve to support professionals and/or users. Most of these documents were developed following a participatory methodology, but it is not always clear whether citizens and actual or past users of social services were directly involved. None of the documents prescribe service user participation in the monitoring of social services as mandatory. Even the documents that refer to the Conseil de Vie Sociale, which is mandatory as part of 2002 legislation, do not have any binding effect. Therefore, it is not surprising that there are limited participatory structures at levels of the social sector and individual social service organisations. Associations and networks of young people at risk of exclusion, advisory groups of young people who use social services and publicly advertised complaints processes are relatively common in France. However, no information could be found on the remaining indicators of organisational structures for responsiveness: representation on advisory or main boards, citizen councils for the group involved in youth at risk, external monitoring structures; participation in associations of social service directors or practitioners; participatory or consultative events to develop social services; user-led social services; peer workers and published feedback from service users.
In Romania, there are no specific laws or regulations for social services working with young people at risk of exclusion, which are instead regulated in the child protection law and defined as young adults from 18 to 26 years. Detailed discussion therefore follows in the next section on child protection.
Similarly, in Denmark, there is considerable overlap in measures of participation and responsiveness between youth and child protection services. Yet, several examples of peer boards and user associations in services for youth at risk are interesting (i.e. One of Us, The Social Network/Headspace). The CTI tool (Critical Time Intervention) model of the Danish Authority of Social Services and Housing for empowering socially vulnerable citizens can be regarded as a citizen and service user-oriented policy. An ongoing evaluation was used to develop the tool and policy, which includes a clear system of guidelines and structures for making decisions. However, the policy did not make user participation in monitoring social services mandatory, did not report how they used citizens’ feedback, meaning that it is unknown how attentive and flexible the policy truly is to user perspectives.
In Portugal, young people at risk of social exclusion and involvement with the criminal justice system have become a priority in public policy and legislation. There are several strategies, programs, commissions and laws that promote this group’s inclusion and participation (e.g. National Strategy for the Promotion of Citizenship and Prevention of Delinquency, The National Commission for Promotion of Rights and Protection of Children and Youth, Youth Guarantee & Youth Inclusion Programs, 146/1999-2023 Law of Child and Youth-At-Risk protection, Decree-Laws for the Protection of Children and Young People in Danger 2008, Family Foster Care and Residential Care Implementation 2019). These efforts have facilitated a shift from a parental rights focus to the mandatory consultation and participation of children and young people in decision-making during individual cases.
Yet, these channels are mostly reduced to consultative mechanisms and do not provide a compulsory structure for having a final word. Moreover, on the more institutional levels, participation is understood very generally in terms of civic, political, social, cultural and economic life instead of the design, implementation, management or evaluation of specific social services that affect their lives. Although young people at risk are represented in some associations, citizen councils and monitoring agencies, no examples of publicly advertised complaints processes, published feedback, user-led services or representation on main boards of services could be found.
While organisational and policy responses to the participation of disadvantaged young people are often lacking in Portugal, one exception can be highlighted that, in some regard, facilitates most dimensions of responsiveness. Since 2001, the Escolhas Program (“Choices Program”) has successively implemented eight waves with the aim to promote the inclusion and social integration of children and young people from contexts of greater socioeconomic vulnerability. Experimental projects were implemented in 53 selected vulnerable neighbourhoods. One of the program’s general principles is the active participation of children and young people in decision-making processes. Projects must ensure the involvement of direct and indirect participants, communities and organisations in all stages of the project, promoting the adequacy and effectiveness of the intervention, as well as training and co-responsibility processes. There is also the possibility to include young people as community facilitators on project staff. A survey among the community facilitators in the eighth wave of the project showed that the vast majority of participants stated that the program had a great impact on their personal and professional development. These results indicate the transformative potential of responsiveness in social services, but crucially do not reveal what impact the project had on professionals and decisions. Since there are also no guidelines about the concrete influence on decision-making and budget allocation, in many cases it is not specified which participatory elements were in fact incorporated and put into practice. Consequently, there is no publicly available evidence to measure the extension and intensity of change within services.
In the Polish youth at-risk sector, discussions about citizen participation and responsiveness of services mainly refer to the deinstitutionalisation of foster care and to the Act on the Support and Resocialisation of Young People. While the idea of responsiveness, participation or subjectivity of young people is more prominent in the discourses of activists and some practitioners, there is nothing about participation in the narratives of the Ministry of Justice. Rather, the ministerial focus is on control and punishment, in line with the mythical and false belief that harsh penalties will deter potential juvenile offenders. Service user participation is very rarely mandatory in any social service in Poland. It is compulsory for young adults raised in foster care to participate in the formation of an independence plan. Beyond individualised approaches to participation, there are no structures for responsiveness in specific legislation on youth services (Act on Family Support and Foster Care System 2011, Family and Guardianship Code 1965, Act on the Support and Rehabilitation of Juveniles 1982/2022) or general legal frameworks for social services (The Act on the Implementation of Social Services 2019, Act on Public Benefit Activity and Volunteerism 2003). Participatory possibilities are missing in legislation concerning vulnerable individuals and community groups, which underpins the overall finding of exclusionary targeting of democratic mechanisms.
In the field of child protection, the responsive infrastructure tends to be very low in each of the investigated countries and the lowest of all social service sectors surveyed in the RESPONSIVE project. Frameworks for services working with youth at risk overlap significantly with child welfare in Austria, Romania and Denmark, meaning that this pessimistic conclusion largely applies to these sectors too. Participation by children or parents – the citizens directly affected by the services – is generally reduced to some voice in individual intervention plans or to children being represented within ‘best interest’ discourses for child well-being. Despite many references in policy and operational guidelines to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), it is very rarely recognised that rights are being claimed on behalf of children by well-meaning adults without providing channels for children to directly express themselves. Whilst an orientation to protecting children somewhat limits attention to user participation, exceptions from France and Portugal show possibilities for responsiveness within child protection services.
In Austria, questions around services for child protection and youth at risk are addressed in the Federal Child and Welfare Act, guidelines from the federal government and implementing laws at regional level.[1] Various stakeholders and representatives regard the delegation of most competencies to regions and the lack of national standards resulting from this as an attack on the UNCRC.[2] There are frequent discussions about participation as a right of children and as an obligation on politicians. However, concrete legal, policy and organisational structures tend to regard children as objects of interventions rather than rights holders. Only a few documents in the child protection field in Austria have emerged from participatory formats. There is a strong tendency to strengthen the service’s own position compared to changing the service’s own structures in the direction of co-decision. There are no user-led organisations in child protection, no citizen councils or assemblies and no examples where parents or children sit on advisory committees, working groups, main boards of services or professional associations in child protection. The Children’s Office” and the “Children’s Rights Network” can be mentioned as an example of external structures that monitor human rights, “beteiligung.st” as a specialized agency for children’s participation and the NGO “Integration Tirol” as a user-led social servicefrom and for parents of children and young people with disabilities. However, once again, those rather incoherent examples and initiatives do not represent responsiveness on a structural or mandatory policy level.
The French child protection sector has a long history of seeking to establish processes of deinstitutionalisation, prevention, home-based education and participatory mechanisms. The Act of 14 March 2016 delivered a new definition of child protection and aims to “ensure that the fundamental needs of the child are taken into account”, offering a strong version of the ‘best interest’ principles found in the UNCRC and other countries. This indirect orientation to the input of citizens who use services is characteristic for the entire legal framework for child protection in France, which provides very limited dimensions of responsiveness. There are, however, some examples of interesting and good practice. A guidance document from the Agence Nouvelle des Solidarités Actives(ANSA, 2022) supports services and organisations active in child protection that wish to set up or redynamise their Council of Social Life (CVS). It was created in a participatory manner with the input of persons having the experience of child protection services and makes proposals on how to deal with power relations in a more democratic way. It states that restricting the number of adults around the table may help to encourage children to express themselves and that children may be more likely to express themselves openly in the absence of their teachers or support staff.
The French child protection field also has several interesting initiatives akin to deliberative democratic forums. For several years, the region (department) of Finistère has run a project named “Haut Parleurs” (“Loudspeaker”). Although only a temporary structure for dialogue between children and youth, parents, professionals and elected officials, it appears to be an exemplary initiative since in the project’s charter/code of conduct, the authorities commit to “creating favourable conditions for a respectful and productive citizen exchange, organising the restitution of the opinion and recommendations of participants to elected members of the Childhood-Youth Family Commission, guaranteeing participants a response to their questions, their opinions and their proposals, integrating the proposals retained by elected representatives in the scheme of childhood, family and youth” (ask France for citation info). One result of the project was a detailed booklet presenting the different proposals that were made by participants, and how they were taken into consideration or put into action by the regional authorities. In some cases, actions were taken to reinforce decisions made prior to the project, e.g. the ‘Children’s project’ (a plan for the child co-elaborated by the child, his/her family and professionals).
Other (new) actions were taken as a result of the proposals submitted by the “Haut Parleurs” project: for example, it was decided to propose practice-sharing workshops to involve parents in the analysis of their family’s situation. In addition, the Haut Parleurs project recommended improving communication with families about the objectives and role of child protection services. As a result, an information campaign was launched in the regional government’s magazine. Even if this project is not representative of the whole child protection sector in France, it shows that democratic change processes are happening when a lot of responsiveness dimensions are facilitated at the same time in terms of committing, monitored and transparent participation mechanisms.
In Romania, there have been significant changes and efforts to improve the well-being and protection of children. Starting from 2000–2005 every county from Romania started to establish a General Directorate for Social Work and Child Protection (DGASPC). Various international organizations, such as UNICEF and the European Union, provided support to align with international standards and reform the large children’s homes inherited from the state socialist era. Despite improvements in deinstitutionalisation, a paternalistic approach is still prevalent and children and youth are not involved in generating ideas on social service development. In research conducted by World Vision in March 2023, one in four Romanian parliamentarians believes that a child is not capable of having an opinion about a law that concerns him (World Vision, 2023). Participation as a concept is only sometimes used in discourse, but its elements, purposes and consequences are not specified.
At the legal level, participatory mechanisms were used in developing all the laws on children and youth, but this can refer to a wide range of stakeholders rather than people directly affected: children and parents in the case of child protection. The Law on the Protection and Promotion of Children’s Rights (No. 272 / 2004) and its quality standards even make user participation in designing social services mandatory on the implementation level but, at the same time, these responsibilities are vaguely formulated. Moreover, the standards do not outline how this obligation should be implemented. Measures to return feedback to citizens and the allocation of resources for user involvement are absent. Thus, compared with social services for disability in Romania, there are rather unclear legal structures to support participation, feedback or involvement of service users in child and youth services.
Responsiveness structures are even lower at the policy level without any well-written examples. The Law on Protection and Promotion of Children’s Rights stipulates that local authorities have an obligation to involve the local community in the process of identifying community needs and addressing children’s social issues. Yet, the legal framework does not a provide as clear a mandate for citizen participation compared to the other three types of social services covered in the RESPONSIVE project.
Isolated examples of innovation in child protection can be found at the level of concrete social service implementation: a Consultative Structure for Communities (SCC) hired peer workers and an international NGO held a participatory laboratory to train and advocate children to be involved in creating policies and social programs (SOS Children’s village Romania). Yet, user-led services, representations on main boards or associations of directors or practitioners are missing as well as consultative events, publicly advertised complaints processes and feedback mechanisms. Thus, there are only very limited structures for responsiveness within Romanian child protection services. Rather positive or inspirational examples are mostly enacted by non-governmental initiatives and would need a mandatory legal and policy framework to be established on a broad, national and effective basis.
In Denmark, there also seem to be clearer structures for citizen-user involvement and responsiveness within disability and mental health services and less towards young people at risk of social exclusion and child protection. The Danish child protection system offers citizens broad amounts of participation in their own individual cases. Danish research suggests an overestimation of certain risks by professionals as well as a tendency to underdiagnose when it comes to abused and neglected children (Christensen & Jørgensen, 2014). Thus, responsiveness to participation on individual levels also means being intersectionally attentive to specific cases and balancing the contextual needs between autonomy and protection by neither overchallenging nor patronizing children via presupposed definitions of best interests. Legislation in Denmark is aware of these risks and states that by granting new rights the responsibility must never be placed solely on the child or young person. On one hand, the wishes of the child or young person should be considered and guide the case. On the other hand, children should be allowed to be children, and it should continue to be the municipality’s responsibility to make a professional assessment of the child’s or young person’s needs.
Albeit reduced to individual case levels, a central participation right in Denmark lies in the right to appeal. This means that decisions made without observing the rules will generally be regarded as ‘invalid’. If a child or parents have not been involved in their case or if a prescribed action plan is missing in the municipality’s case, the Administrative Appeals Board (Ankestyrelsen) will, upon complaint, be inclined to set aside the decision, amend it, or return it to the municipality for a new decision. The decision will be confirmed only if it can be demonstrated that the procedural error was not significant for the outcome of the case. Complaints are one mechanism of responsiveness and democracy within social services, but again relate to individual experiences rather than the broader organisation, running and monitoring of services, where there is little children or parental participation in Denmark.
In the Danish child protection sector, the autonomy of regions and municipalities to develop their own processes in combination with the lack of (participatory) monitoring systems evaluating concrete outcomes leads to different results. The advantage for social service agencies to deal with problems contextually and independently is confronted with the disadvantage of limited, absent or tokenistic participation practices. This is one of the reasons why policy and organisational frameworks in child protection in Denmark are, like the other investigated contexts, characterised by limited dimensions of responsiveness.
In Portugal, the domain of child protection is characterized by strong overlap with the field of youth at risk, but also shows key differences. The legal framework for participation in child protection is much less established and offers almost no channels for responsiveness in social services. The involvement of parents and children in shaping discourses about child protection is even scarcer and the voices represented are dominated by organisations and professionals. However, on the policy and organisational level, the recent White Paper on Children Participation in Portugal serves as a counterexample. Resulting from the National Strategy for Children’s Rights 2021–2024, the White Paper was drafted by the National Commission for the Promotion of the Rights and Protection of Children and Young People (2023) and involved 778 children (from 6 to 18 years old, 265 from vulnerable contexts) to apply and evaluate the Council of Europe’s Child Participation Assessment Tool indicators. Children were invited to give recommendations for improving children’s and young people’s participation. The materials were adapted by specialised professionals to be understood by the youngest children. The language used was very simple and accessible. The White Paper identifies many proposals to help social services and professionals developing participatory methodologies with children and young people. For instance, it calls for the implementation of councils and participation mechanisms in residential care, hospitals, schools and governmental bodies and it suggests developing clear consultation and co-decision procedures or user-friendly versions of websites with information about children’s and young people’s rights. Nevertheless, the proposals often include only abstract references to participation and do not give clear guidelines for the implementation of participatory strategies. Whereas the evaluation of social services is mentioned as an activity where children need to be included, specific guidance on methodology for achieving this is missing.
In Poland, there are no separate public child protection services, which hinders the effective introduction of systemic measures preventing child abuse and neglect. Most tasks connected with child protection are the responsibility of social assistance or law enforcement agencies, including police, family and criminal courts. Ideas of responsiveness and citizen participation are rather marginalised. They are articulated explicitly only by the current Commissioner for Children’s Rights, although the focus is on service users as informants, not as equal participants or decision-makers. The postholder is quite widely criticised for being passive, ignoring requests to take action and not being a true advocate for children. It is also worth mentioning that Polish legal and axiological systems are family-oriented and the child is primarily seen as a member of the family under the protection of parents or guardians rather than individual rights holder. The “Polish Act on Family Support and Foster Care System 2011” assumes that if problems occur, the welfare system and other public institutions should support families in the first place through family assistants, while parental rights can only be limited or deprived as a last resort.
[1] Add reference from https://national-policies.eacea.ec.europa.eu/youthwiki/chapters/austria/12-national-youth-law
[2] Add reference from https://unicef.at/fileadmin/media/Infos_und_Medien/Info-Material/Kinderrechte/Schattenbericht-der-Republik-Oesterreich-Kinderrechte.pdf
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