What are social support services?
Welfare states provide social support services to improve the well-being and social inclusion of individuals in a vulnerable situation. Such services may be provided by public, private, or non-governmental organisations to beneficiaries who experience marginalisation, or social exclusion. This can include persons with disabilities, children without adequate parental care, homeless people, asylum seekers, Roma people, or women experiencing domestic violence. Social support services include care services in the community (e.g. personal assistance, day care, foster care, adoption), housing support, safety and protection from abuse, neglect and exploitation (e.g. shelters, protected homes), legal or psychological counselling, advice (e.g. for young people ageing out of care), and representation of interests.
Why are social support services important?
It is important that social support services are planned and implemented in a way that respects the human rights of service users and ensures quality outcomes for them. Ideally, beneficiaries of social services should be actively involved in the development of services, through co-creation. At the same time, social support services should be managed in a sustainable way by offering decent working conditions and skills development opportunities for personnel and having adequate financial resources in place. Partnership among different actors from central to local level is key in the delivery of social support services. Social support services can contribute to improving well-being and quality of life, creating better opportunities, and reducing the individual risks of vulnerability as well as the dependency on the formal social protection systems. Social support services can therefore contribute to a fair and inclusive society.
What we offer:
The European Centre works with central and local level public authorities, service providers and organisations of civil society, international organisations, and researchers to improve various aspects of social support services delivery. The European Centre is offering research and policy analysis for the better design, implementation, and evaluation of social support services by:
- Providing evidence-based research results to support policy design for social support services;
- Conducting comparative analyses and case studies to understand the challenges and key success factors for the social services sector from the perspective of public authorities, service providers, service users and workers’ representatives;
- Helping public authorities to develop person-centred and integrated approaches to service delivery for different target groups, as part of efforts to transition from institutional to community-based care in the UNECE region;
- Providing cost and financial analysis of provisions of social support services, also in the context of decentralization;
- Performing impact and outcome ex-post and ex-ante evaluation of social support services;
- Suggesting transfer and upscaling of good practices and innovative approaches in the context of social support service delivery for different target groups;
- Facilitating mutual learning events (peer reviews, policy reviews) for policy makers of the UNECE region to share promising practices on developing, running and financing social support services;
- Designing and delivering inter-disciplinary trainings on social support services for different target groups (e.g. children, persons with disabilities, older people).
FAQs
The European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research is an intergovernmental organisation affiliated with the United Nations and works on all aspects of social welfare policy. It defines its fields of research as work & welfare and health & care.
What is the social welfare system in Europe? ›
While European states do not all use a single social model, welfare states in Europe share several broad characteristics. These generally include an acceptance of political responsibility for levels and conditions of employment, social protections for all citizens, social inclusion, and democracy.
What is a social support service? ›
Social support services include care services in the community (e.g. personal assistance, day care, foster care, adoption), housing support, safety and protection from abuse, neglect and exploitation (e.g. shelters, protected homes), legal or psychological counselling, advice (e.g. for young people ageing out of care), ...
What is social support in research? ›
Social support has been defined as efforts to aid individuals or that encourage their sense of attachment to significant groups. Those who have more social support have been found to have greater wellbeing and physical health, and to be less negatively affected by stressful circ*mstances.
What does the European Social Fund do? ›
European Social Fund invests in quality jobs, training and social inclusion. In 2014-2022, the European Social Fund helped Member States progress towards achieving the EU's 2030 headline targets in employment, training and poverty reduction.
What is the difference between social policy and social welfare policy? ›
Social welfare policy, a subset of social policy, regulates the provision of benefits to people to meet basic life needs, such as em- ployment, income, food, housing, health care, and relationships. Social welfare policy is influenced by the con- text in which benefits are provided.
What are the 7 types of social support? ›
| Types of Social Support |
|---|
| Emotional | Expressions of empathy, love, trust and caring |
| Instrumental | Tangible aid and service |
| Informational | Advice, suggestions, and information |
| Appraisal | Information that is useful for self-evaluation |
1 more rowMeals, transportation, personal care assistance, housekeeping, case management, wellness checks, tenancy support, and care coordination some examples of services that help people thrive in their communities.
What are 6 examples of social support? ›
Examples of Social Support
- Listening to a friend talk about a stressful situation.
- Validating another member of a support group when they talk about their feelings.
- Cooking meals for a neighbor who has been feeling ill.
- Praising an employee for doing a good job.
Define social support and its two types: emotional support and instrumental support. Describe the two ways social support can help people deal with stress.
22 Conversely, negative supports such as perception of arguing, being criticised, feelings of undue demand or too much intervention may serve as an additional source of stress for poor people who are already psychologically vulnerable due to financial stress.
What is the main goal of social support? ›
According to this theory, social support protects people from the bad health effects of stressful events (i.e., stress buffering) by influencing how people think about and cope with the events.
What is the European Centre for policy? ›
The European Policy Centre (EPC) is committed to sound financial management and to transparency in respect of its funding sources. In line with its mission statement, the EPC is an independent think tank and none of the financing it receives affects its independence in any way.
What is European social policy? ›
European social policies aim to promote employment, improve living and working conditions, provide adequate social protection and combat social exclusion.
What is the central for European policy? ›
The Centre for European Policy (German: cep | Centrum für Europäische Politik) (cep) is a German think tank whose task it is to evaluate the European Union's draft laws and legislation on the basis of ordoliberal free market criteria.
What is the Centre for European social and economic policy? ›
Founded in Brussels in 1983, CEPS is a leading think tank and forum for debate on EU affairs, with an exceptionally strong in-house research capacity and an extensive network of partner institutes throughout the world.
